AFLA-PISTACHIO: Development of a Mechanistic Model to Predict the Aflatoxin Contamination of Pistachio Nuts

Michail D. Kaminiaris, Marco Camardo Leggieri, Dimitrios I. Tsitsigiannis, Paola Battilani*

*Autore corrispondente per questo lavoro

Risultato della ricerca: Contributo in rivistaArticolo in rivista

8 Citazioni (Scopus)

Abstract

In recent years, very many incidences of contamination with aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) in pistachio nuts have been reported as a major global problem for the crop. In Europe, legislation is in force and 12 μg/kg of AFB1 is the maximum limit set for pistachios to be subjected to physical treatment before human consumption. The goal of the current study was to develop a mechanistic, weather-driven model to predict Aspergillus flavus growth and the AFB1 contamination of pistachios on a daily basis from nut setting until harvest. The planned steps were to: (i) build a phenology model to predict the pistachio growth stages, (ii) develop a prototype model named AFLA-pistachio (model transfer from AFLA-maize), (iii) collect the meteorological and AFB1 contamination data from pistachio orchards, (iv) run the model and elaborate a probability function to estimate the likelihood of overcoming the legal limit, and (v) manage a preliminary validation. The internal validation of AFLA-pistachio indicated that 75% of the predictions were correct. In the external validation with an independent three-year dataset, 95.6% of the samples were correctly predicted. According to the results, AFLA-pistachio seems to be a reliable tool to follow the dynamic of AFB1 contamination risk throughout the pistachio growing season.
Lingua originaleEnglish
pagine (da-a)445-457
Numero di pagine13
RivistaToxins
Volume12
DOI
Stato di pubblicazionePubblicato - 2020

Keywords

  • Aspergillus flavus
  • aflatoxin B1
  • model transfer
  • preharvest
  • probability
  • weather

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