LAUSR

Georgia produces half of the United States’ peanuts, but the Southeast loses 25 million U.S. dollars annually due to aflatoxins from Aspergillus spp. contamination. Aspergillus flavus produces aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), one of the most toxic and carcinogenic substances affecting humans, livestock, and crops globally. Synthetic chemicals, genetic engineering, and biological control methods have been employed against A. flavus with limited success. Recently, there has been considerable interest in using plant-based antimicrobial compounds against mold. Our previous study established the aflatoxigenic properties of clove essential oil (EO) against A. flavus. We now evaluate the effectiveness of clove EO in artificially inoculated organic peanuts. Tween 20 served as a control, and all experiments were done in replicates. AFB1 was quantified using selected ion monitoring (SIM) based liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) techniques. Our findings demonstrated that a high concentration of clove EO significantly reduced AFB1 in infected peanuts. Interestingly, a high reduction in AFB1 production was observed between 0 and 500 ppm, and the reduction increased slightly at higher concentrations of 1000 and 2000 ppm, respectively. Our results demonstrate that clove EO is most effective at reducing AFB1 in infected peanuts at low concentrations. We will further investigate the potential of clove EO as a biological control agent against A. flavus.