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The effects of climate change on water availability affect the performance of surface irrigation, which is the oldest and most common method of water application to row crops worldwide. A paradigm shift towards strategies aimed at increasing flexibility of irrigation scheduling and improving the design and management of field layouts and irrigation practices should be explored to promote water savings at the farm scale. In this study, we investigate how adopting a more flexible irrigation scheduling and optimizing irrigation management variables and field layout it is possible to increase the efficiency of border irrigation and thus achieve water savings and improve quality of crop production. The analysis of the actual performance of border irrigation was carried out on two maize fields located in the Padana Plain (Northern Italy) in two years characterized by different rainfall patterns (i.e. 2021 and 2022). Based on this information, continuous monitoring of soil moisture status combined with the AquaCrop-OS agro-hydrological model was used to manage flexible irrigation scheduling over the experimental fields. While the optimization of irrigation management (flowrate per unit width and cutoff time) and field geometries (border width and slope) was studied using WinSRFR 5.1 USDA software, which was properly calibrated by measures of waterfront advance and recession. The results show that with flexible irrigation scheduling and proper irrigation management and field layout, significant water savings can be achieved. Specifically, in the case study, seasonal water savings of about 10% were obtained just by scheduling irrigation based on actual crop water needs in a very dry agricultural season, while water savings reached up to 60% in a wetter season. On average, an additional 7% of water savings was achieved over the agricultural season when the irrigation duration was correctly applied to each border of the experimental plots, while approximately 20% of water was saved when the border width was correctly designed based on inflow availability. These results provide useful information for improving the management of border irrigation in practice, both under current conditions and in the face of increasing freshwater scarcity in the future.

Little is known about the effects of Fusarium mycotoxins on the fermentation potential of rumen fluid sampled from lactating dairy cows ingesting diets contaminated at regular levels of these mycotoxins (i.e., contamination levels that can normally be found on dairy farms). In the current experiment, rumen donor animals received diets contaminated with both deoxynivalenol (DON) and fumonisins (FB) with or without a mycotoxin-deactivating product. The rumen fluid donor animals were 12 lactating Holstein dairy cows that received one of 3 experimental diets in agreement with a 3 × 3 Latin square design (3 periods and 3 treatments). The 3 diets were as follows: (1) a TMR contaminated with a regular level of Fusarium mycotoxins [340.5 ± 161.0 µg of DON/kg of dry matter (DM) and 127.9 ± 43.9 µg of FB/kg of DM; control diet, CTR], (2) a TMR contaminated with Fusarium mycotoxins at levels higher than CTR but below US and European Union guidelines (733.0 ± 213.6 µg of DON/kg of DM and 994.4 ± 323.2 µg of FB/kg of DM; MTX), and (3) the MTX diet (897.3 ± 230.4 µg of DON/kg of DM and 1,247.1 ± 370.2 µg of FB/kg of DM) supplemented with a mycotoxin-deactivator product (Mycofix, Biomin Holding GmbH; 35 g/animal per day; MDP). Each experimental period lasted 21 d, and rumen fluid was individually sampled from all cows on the last day of each intoxication period. Then, the 4 rumen fluids sampled from cows receiving the same experimental diets were pooled into a single rumen inoculum, which was used in the in vitro gas production test. For the gas production test, 3 different rumen inocula (i.e., CTR, MTX, and MDP) were buffered (buffer:rumen ratio of 2:1, vol/vol) and then used in 3 fermentation runs to evaluate gas production dynamics in the presence of 8 feeds (i.e., corn meal, barley meal, corn silage, sorghum silage, alfalfa hay, ryegrass hay, dry brewers barley grains, and dried distillers grains with solubles). The kinetic parameters of gas production and volatile fatty acid concentrations were evaluated at the end of fermentation. The block run (i.e., fermentation day) effect influenced all of the fermentative and kinetic parameters. Greater final volumes or rates of gas production over time were observed for MDP compared with MTX rumen inocula (i.e., 172.6 vs. 147.8 mL/g of organic matter or 0.078 vs. 0.063 h−1, respectively). However, the increase in rate of gas production was not consistent among tested feeds, meaning that a treatment by feed interaction was observed. Volatile fatty acid concentrations were not different among treatments, except for a slight increase of acetic acid in CTR compared with MTX (i.e., 71.0 vs. 67.9 mmol/L). This study showed that Fusarium-produced mycotoxins negatively affected the kinetics of gas production in feeds, whereas the presence of the mycotoxin-deactivator product in the diets of donor animals resulted in an increase in rumen fermentation potential, thus safeguarding the rumen environment.

In this study, an untargeted metabolomics approach based on ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) was used for investigating changes in chemical profiles of cow milk considering diets based on mycotoxins-contaminated corn silages. For this purpose, 45 milk samples were classified into five clusters according to the corn silage contamination profile, namely (1) low levels of Aspergillus- and Penicillium-mycotoxins, (2) low levels of fumonisins and other Fusarium-mycotoxins, (3) high levels of Aspergillus-mycotoxins, (4) high levels of non-regulated Fusarium-mycotoxins, (5) high levels of fumonisins and their metabolites, and subsequently analyzed by UHPLC-HRMS followed by a multivariate statistical analysis (both unsupervised and supervised statistical approaches). Overall, the milk metabolomic profile highlighted potential correlations between the quality of contaminated corn silages (as part of the total mixed ration) and milk composition. Metabolomics allowed to identify 628 significant milk metabolites as affected by the five levels of corn silage contamination considered, with amino acids and peptides showing the highest metabolite set enrichment (134 compounds). Additionally, 78 metabolites were selected as the best discriminant of the prediction model built, possessing a variable importance in projection score &gt, 1.2. The average Log Fold-Change variations of the discriminant metabolites provided evidence that sphingolipids, together with purine and pyrimidine-derived metabolites were the most affected chemical classes. Also, metabolomics revealed a significant accumulation of oxidized glutathione in milk samples belonging to the silage cluster contaminated by emerging Aspergillus toxins, likely involved in the oxidative imbalance. These preliminary findings provide new insights into the potential role of milk metabolomics to provide chemical indicators of mycotoxins-contaminated corn silage feeding systems.

In this work, a retrospective screening based on ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) based on Orbitrap-Q-Exactive Focus™ was used to check the occurrence of regulated and emerging mycotoxins in bulk milk samples. Milk samples were collected from dairy farms in which corn silage was the main ingredient of the feeding system. The 45 bulk milk samples were previously analyzed for a detailed untargeted metabolomic profiling and classified into five clusters according to the corn silage contamination profile, namely: (1) low levels of Aspergillus- and Penicillium-mycotoxins, (2) low levels of fumonisins and other Fusarium-mycotoxins, (3) high levels of Aspergillus-mycotoxins, (4) high levels of non-regulated Fusarium-mycotoxins, (5) high levels of fumonisins and their metabolites. Multivariate statistics based on both unsupervised and supervised analyses were used to evaluate the significant fold-change variations of the main groups of mycotoxins detected when comparing milk samples from clusters 3, 4, and 5 (high contamination levels of the corn silages) with cluster 1 and 2 (low contamination levels of the corn silages). Overall, 14 compounds showed a significant prediction ability, with antibiotic Y (VIP score = 2.579), bikaverin (VIP score = 1.975) and fumonisin B2 (VIP score = 1.846) being the best markers. The k-means clustering combined with supervised statistics showed two discriminant groups of milk samples, thus revealing a hierarchically higher impact of the whole feeding system (rather than the only corn silages) together with other factors of variability on the final mycotoxin contamination profile. Among the discriminant metabolites we found some Fusarium mycotoxins, together with the tetrapeptide tentoxin (an Alternaria toxin), the α-zearalenol (a catabolite of zearalenone), mycophenolic acid and apicidin. These preliminary findings provide new insights into the potential role of UHPLC-HRMS to evaluate the contamination profile and the safety of raw milk to produce hard cheese.

Effects of commercial and pure lactic acid bacteria (LAB) inoculants on fermentation and levels of aflatoxins and other mycotoxins in corn silage that was experimentally contaminated in the field with a toxigenic strain of Aspergillus flavus (ITEM 8069) were determined. Late-season corn hybrid plants were inoculated with A. flavus at silk emergence, and fresh-chopped corn was harvested at the ⅔ milk line stage (dry matter [DM]: 428 ± 6.5 g/kg) and ensiled directly (control, CTR) or after treatment with 9 LAB inoculants. Commercial inoculants contained Lactobacillus (L.) buchneri LB1819 and Lactococcus lactis O224 or Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactococcus lactis SR3.54 (respectively SiloSolve FC or SiloSolve MC, Chr. Hansen A/S, Horsholm, Denmark), L. buchneri and L. plantarum (Pioneer brand 11C33, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Des Moines, USA). One pure strain of L. brevis DSMZ 20054, two pure strains of L. plantarum (LP ATCC 8014 and LP PB) and three of L. rhamnosus (LR ATCC 7469, LR LR7 and LR RI) were also used. Each silage received an inoculant at final expected dose of approximately 250,000 CFU/g of freshly chopped forage, and was ensiled in 20 L mini-silos, compacted to density of 160 kg dry-mass/m3, stored at room temperature, and opened after 30 or 120 days. The commercial and pure inoculants had few effects on fermentation relative to CTR. Ensiling time and LAB treatment had no effect on silage pH. However SiloSolve FC silage had lower ethanol levels than CTR group, while 1,2 propanediol level doubled as ensiling time increased and the high values were with SiloSolve FC and Pioneer CFT. Aerobic stability increased with ensiling time, with the longest stability in SiloSolve FC and L. rhamnosus ATCC 7469 silage. Lowest aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) concentrations were in the L. rhamnosus LR7 and L. plantarum ATCC 8014 silages (about 8–10 μg/kg DM) and the highest concentration was in L. brevis DSMZ 20054 silage (34.2 μg/kg DM). Concluding, future investigations should be carried out to examine the relationship between LAB and mycotoxinegic fungi during ensiling.

Sixty-four corn silages were characterized for chemicals, bacterial community, and concentrations of several fungal metabolites. Silages were grouped in five clusters, based on detected mycotoxins, and they were characterized for being contaminated by (1) low levels of Aspergillus- and Penicillium-mycotoxins, (2) low levels of fumonisins and other Fusarium-mycotoxins, (3) high levels of Aspergillus-mycotoxins, (4) high levels of non-regulated Fusarium-mycotoxins, (5) high levels of fumonisins and their metabolites. Altersetin was detected in clusters 1, 3, and 5. Rugulusovin or brevianamide F were detected in several samples, with the highest concentration in cluster 3. Emodin was detected in more than 50.0% of samples of clusters 1, 3 and 5, respectively. Kojic acid occurred mainly in clusters 1 and 2 at very low concentrations. Regarding Fusarium mycotoxins, high occurrences were observed for FB3, FB4, FA1, whereas the average concentrations of FB6 and FA2 were lower than 12.4 µg/kg dry matter. Emerging Fusarium-produced mycotoxins, such as siccanol, moniliformin, equisetin, epiequisetin and bikaverin were detected in the majority of analyzed corn silages. Pestalotin, oxaline, phenopirrozin and questiomycin A were detected at high incidences. Concluding, this work highlighted that corn silages could be contaminated by a high number of regulated and emerging mycotoxins.