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ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Food and Feed Safety Research » Research » Research Project #447780

Research Project: Modeling Mycotoxins Outbreaks in the USA

Location: Food and Feed Safety Research

Project Number: 6054-42000-027-014-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jul 31, 2026
End Date: Jul 1, 2028

Objective:
Primary support in computer programming will focus on developing a data model that integrates all relevant field and remote sensing inputs to predict mycotoxin outbreaks in the United States. The cooperator will work closely with a multidisciplinary research team, including ARS scientists and support staff. They will be responsible for achieving the research project’s goals by writing new software code and/or updating and maintaining existing code as needed. The cooperator will assist with integrating ground-truth data on spore dispersal and mycotoxin events, as well as incorporating empirical data from experiments that evaluate the effects of mitigation techniques on mycotoxin contamination.

Approach:
This project involves pre-harvest modeling of mycotoxin outbreak in corn plants in Texas. Over 10-years of historic mycotoxin data at county level from Texas, weather data (Precipitation and temperature) at daily frequency, and other data will be used for modeling work from USDA data source or other public data sources. Also, there are over 13-years of historic data for Illinois and 6-years for Iowa.