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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Biological Control of Pests Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #283232

Title: The effect of feeding diets containing deoxynivalenol contaminated corn on channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) challenged with Edwardsiella ictaluri

Author
item MANNING, BRUCE - Mississippi State University
item Abbas, Hamed
item WISE, DAVID - Mississippi State University
item GREENWAY, TERRY - Mississippi State University

Submitted to: Aquaculture Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/21/2012
Publication Date: 1/10/2013
Citation: Manning, B.B., Abbas, H.K., Wise, D.J., Greenway, T. 2013. The effect of feeding diets containing deoxynivalenol contaminated corn on channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) challenged with Edwardsiella ictaluri. Aquaculture Research, 1-5; doi:10.1111/are.12123.

Interpretive Summary: Catfish are an important source of nutrition and protein in the mid-south. Deoxynivalenone (DON), which is a natural toxin produced by moldy corn, is harmful to swine. The contaminated corn with DON at 2ppm or higher is often rejected by FDA regulations. We found the contaminated corn actually benefited catfish when fed to them at high levels of DON by strengthening their immune systems. This allows farmers to use their contaminated corn for a good purpose rather than discarding it. These findings have a major impact on catfish producers in preventing losses.

Technical Abstract: Channel catfish were fed practical corn-soybean meal diets for 10 weeks that contained various weighed amounts of ground, dried field corn contaminated with 20 mg deoxynivalenol (DON)/kg. Weighed amounts of DON corn were blended with weighed amounts of ground clean corn that contained no DON (0 mg/kg) to yield five diets that had 0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 mg DON/kg of diet. Results show that catfish fed diets for seven weeks that contained DON did not experience lower weight gains and poorer feed conversion ratios that were significantly (P >0.05) different from control-fed fish. Mortality of catfish during the 21-day post-challenge period indicate that catfish fed diets containing DON-contaminated corn that provided at least 5.0 mg DON/kg of diet had significantly (P <0.05) lower mortality than catfish fed the control diet or the diet that provided 2.5 mg DON/kg of diet. The presence of DON-contaminated corn in these diets appeared to provide a protective effect for channel catfish exposed to the pathogenic bacterium Edwardsiella ictaluri.