Water and Drought
Aflatoxin Contamination
Aflatoxin is a natural carcinogen that occurs in peanuts under drought stress. UGA biological and agricultural engineers developed a technique to identify areas in a peanut field at high-risk for aflatoxin contamination so that peanuts in these areas can be separated from the remainder of the crop. They initiated a project to evaluate remote sensing as a technique for easily identifying drought-stressed areas in a peanut field. To do this they used tractor-mounted and airborne multispectral cameras in a 30-acre rain-fed peanut field to create multispectral images of the crop at critical times during the growing season. These techniques show great promise as a tool for producers to identify and segregate areas of the field at high risk for aflatoxin contamination. Segregation of high-risk areas can save the producer money as well as improve the safety of the food supply. (2006)
Sources
| Name | Department | |
| George Vellidis | yiorgos@uga.edu | Biological and Agricultural Engineering |
| Calvin Perry | perrycd@uga.edu | Biological and Agricultural Engineering |
| Keith Rucker | tsrucker@uga.edu | Tift County Extension agent |