Gas chromatographic determination of deoxynivalenol in wheat

Modifications to a published method are described for the determination of deoxynivalenol (DON) in wheat by gas chromatography with electron capture quantitation of the heptafluorobutyrate derivative. In the modified method, DON is extracted by shaking the sample with methanol-water on a wrist-action shaker, followed by filtration through rapid flow paper. One concentration step is eliminated, and a hexane wash is incorporated to remove toluene from the silica gel column. Recoveries of DON from wheat samples spiked at 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 ppm ranged from 77.3 to 86.3% and averaged 81.5%.