Biesaga-Koscielniak

In spite of the fact that contamination of cereals and grains and related products with mycotoxins causes food and feed-bome intoxications in man and livestock, zearalenone in low concentrations can be treated as a plant hormone which influences the development and yield of crop plants (Biesaga-Koscielniak 2001). This review focuses on the effect of low doses of zearalenone on the stimulation of selected physiological processes in plants important for agriculture production. 

Table 15.1 The influence of zearalenone on the generative development of winter wheat cv. Grana after various periods of vernalization (According to Biesaga-Koscielniak 1998, modified). Isolated wheat embryos were cultured in sterile conditions on Murashige and Skoog (1962) media supplemented with 0 (control), 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 and 2.00 mg/dm3 of zearalenone during 14, 28 and 42 days at 5°C (vernalization). After these periods, plants were transferred to soil and cultivated at 20/17°C. Number of headed plants, generative development of apexes and number of vegetative ones was obtained after 100 days of grown at 20/17°C...

The influence of zearalenone on the generative development of winter rape was much weaker in comparison with that of wheat. None of the concentrations which stimulated wheat plants induced the flowering of rape plants. Zearalenone treatment stimulated only the first step of the process of the shoot apices generative differentiation (Biesaga-Koscielniak 2001). 

Biesaga-KoScielniak J, Marcinska I, W dzony M, KoScielniak J (2003) Effect of zearalenone treatment in the production of wheat haploids via maize pollination system. Plant Cell Rep 21 1035-1039... 

Szechynska-Hebda M, Skrzypek E, D browska G, Biesaga-KoScielniak J, Filek M, W dzony M (2007) The role of oxidative stress induced by growth regulators in the regeneration process of wheat. Acta Physiol Plant 29 327-337... 

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