Mycotoxins and horticultural products: risks and management along chains

The management of good agricultural practices in the pre-harvest is a key issue for minimizing the risk of mycotoxin accumulation in the crops before the harvest, including the horticultural products (e.g. fresh and dried fruit and vegetables, nuts, pulses and medicinal aromatic plants). Such practices can involve crop rotation, tillage, proper fertilization and fungicide or biological control distribution, variety selection, planting and harvest timely and the control of the insects, which often act as vectors of toxigenic fungi spores. On the other hand, the reduction of mycotoxins along the agro-food chains also highly depends on a correct post-harvest management that must aim firstly at the separation of the infected crop products from the healthy material. In addition, the use of a range of rapid and effective detection tools is also a crucial point for evaluating the level of mycotoxin contamination of a given crop or food/feed. Moreover, it is extremely important to prevent post-harvest contamination during the storage by keeping low temperature and humidity conditions, in order to limit the development of toxigenic fungal strains. An update review will be given on the integrated pre-and post-harvest management practices, aimed to minimize the risk of mycotoxin contamination of the main horticultural crops of agro-food importance and main effective solutions proposed and reached by EU project MycoKey (http://www.mycokey.eu/).