Analyzing DON in Wheat and Barley

The U of M Mycotoxin Lab, managed by Yanhong Dong, plays a key role in analyzing mycotoxin data for FHB research to evaluate DON (deoxynivalenol, or vomitoxin), the toxic byproduct of FHB that can make wheat unsuitable for milling, and barley unsuitable for malting.

U of M mycotoxin lab manager Yanhong Dong with a spectrometer used for grain quality analysis.

By analyzing mycotoxins, the project provided support to barley and wheat breeding programs to develop resistant varieties, and to researchers to study disease mechanisms and to develop effective and economical chemical and biological disease controls.

From July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2003, the project analyzed 11,155 samples submitted by 10 scab research projects.  This compares with an estimated 10,000 grain samples the previous year;  5,518 samples in 1999/00 and 3,122 in 1998/99.

The U of M lab is one of four in the country. Two other labs are at North Dakota State University, and another at Michigan State University. All four labs are supported in part by the U.S. Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative. Quality assurance evaluation to ensure DON test accuracy indicates that the variation in analyses over several days is low and that there are no major differences in analytical values of check samples among the four DON diagnostic centers.