Evaluation of ability of ferulic acid to control growth and fumonisin production of Fusarium verticillioides and Fusarium proliferatum on maize based media

• In vitro effect of ferulic acid (FA) on growth and fumonisin production by F. verticillioides and F. proliferatum was asses.
• FA was able to significantly reduce growth and fumonisin production at concentrations ≥ 20mM.
• Fumonisin production was stimulated by 1 and 10 mM FA regardless the aW used.
• Fungal growth was inhibited but fumonisin production was stimulated at 10 mM of FA regardless of the aW.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of ferulic acid (1, 10, 20 and 25 mM) at different water activity (aw) values (0.99, 0.98, 0.96 and 0.93) at 25 °C on growth and fumonisin production by Fusarium verticillioides and Fusarium proliferatum on maize based media. For both Fusarium species, the lag phase significantly decreased (p ≤ 0.001), and the growth rates increased (p ≤ 0.001) at the lowest ferulic acid concentration used (1 mM), regardless of the aw. However, high doses of ferulic acid (10 to 25 mM) significantly reduced (p ≤ 0.001) the growth rate of both Fusarium species, regardless of the aw. In general, growth rate inhibition increased as ferulic acid doses increased and as media aw decreased. Fumonisin production profiles of both Fusarium species showed that low ferulic acid concentrations (1–10 mM) significantly increased (p ≤ 0.001) toxin production, regardless of the aw. High doses of ferulic acid (20–25 mM) reduced fumonisin production, in comparison with the controls, by both Fusarium species but they were not statistically significant in most cases. The results show that the use of ferulic acid as a post-harvest strategy to reduce mycotoxin accumulation on maize needs to be discussed.