Very interesting article on a biological pesticide created to effectively 
fight against aflatoxin in Georgia.  --  Marilyn

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/06/040625084110.htm

Science Daily - Peanut farmers now have a biological pesticide for 
protecting their crops from fungi that produce aflatoxin. A biological 
pesticide developed by Agricultural Research Service scientists recently 
received U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Section 3 registration.

Circle One Global, Inc. (COGI), of Cuthbert, Ga., the sole licensee of the 
ARS treatment, will immediately begin producing the biopesticide, called 
Afla-Guard, for use in 2004. The ideal time to inoculate peanut fields is 
late June or early July.
ARS scientist Joe W. Dorner and colleagues at the agency's National Peanut 
Research Laboratory in Dawson, Ga., made the biological treatment from 
spores of a nontoxigenic strain of Aspergillus flavus that is applied to 
barley kernels. The kernels are then applied to the soil beneath the plant 
canopy, where the fungus colonizes the barley and establishes itself to 
compete against toxigenic strains of A. flavus that are naturally present. 
Other strains of A. flavus, as well as A. parasiticus, are the primary 
producers of aflatoxin.

Afla-Guard, in field trials, reduced aflatoxin typically 70 to 90 percent 
after the first application. Repeated applications in subsequent years 
reduced aflatoxin by as much as 98 percent.