Occurrence and Distribution of Microdochium and Fusarium Species Isolated from Durum Wheat in Northern Tunisia and Detection of Mycotoxins in Naturally Infested Grain

An outbreak of Fusarium Head Blight of durum wheat occurred in 2004 being localized in sub-humid and higher semi-arid region of Northern Tunisia. A mycological survey carried out throughout these regions, revealed that 78% of the prospected fields were infested. Results of the morphological and molecular identification, showed that the most common species isolated from diseased wheat spikes was Microdochium nivale var. nivale (63.5%), followed by Fusarium culmorum (26%), F. pseudograminearum (9%) and F. avenaceum (1.5%). To evaluate mycotoxin content of naturally infected grain, the amounts of trichothecene mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) in harvested grain from 45 fields were quantified by RIDASCREEN DON Enzyme Immunoassay Kit (ELISA). This study showed that the infection levels in freshly harvested grain were very low and the maximum deoxynivalenol (DON) level of the positive samples was 53 ppb. This is the first report on the natural occurrence of DON in naturally infected wheat grain sampled from Northern Tunisia.