AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGY, 2015, V. 50, ¹ 4, pp. 503-512 ISSN 2412-0324 (English ed. Online) (SEL’SKOKHOZYAISTVENNAYA BIOLOGIYA) ISSN 0131-6397 (Russian ed. Print) ISSN 2313-4836 (Russian ed. Online) Sanitary quality of fodder, fodder supplements doi: 10.15389/agrobiology.2015.4.503rus doi: 10.15389/agrobiology.2015.4.503eng MYCOTOXIN CONTAMINATION OF MEADOW GRASSES IN EUROPEAN RUSSIA A.A. BURKIN, G.P. KONONENKO Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations, 5, Zvenigorodskoe sh., Moscow, 123022 Russia, e-mail kononenkogp@mail.ru Acknowledgements: The authors thank the Head of Central Veterinary Office for Moscow Province and the staff of Territorial Offices for Animal Health Control for assistance in sampling hay A b s t r a c t A toxicity of plants eaten by animals at grazing land is shown to be complicated with various causes and clinical manifestations. <...> In addition to phytotoxins and «infection» factors carried onto the plants by the insects (e.g., bacterial corynetoxins), the toxic metabolites of endophytic and epiphytic fungi are considered to play the significant role. <...> Based on early understanding, the local risks for cattle, sheep and horses during grazing and stable periods were caused mainly by ergotism, myrothecio- and fusariotoxicoses. <...> Then, for a long time a mycotoxicological evaluation of local grass feeds was not carried out. <...> To date, there is the only one study indicating differences between contaminations of the wild-growing gramineous plants and cultivated cereal crops (A.A. Burkin et al., 2010). <...> The aim of the paper was to summarize our data of assaing 517 meadow grass samples from natural pastures and haying places in European Russia undertaken for the first time to determine contamination with mycotoxins. <...> The spikes of fescue timothy sp., couch grass (L.), sp., and other locally occurring gramineous plants were selected in North Karelia, Tverskaya, Leningradskaya and Astrakhanskaya regions for July-October 2011. <...> For summer and autumn 2014 collections the aboveground parts of gramineous plants and legumes were taken from Moskovskaya, Tverskaya, Astrakhanskaya regions and North Karelia. <...> The average samples of the field sets of hay were obtained from the animal farms of Moskovskaya region from December 2013 up to April 2014. <...> A multiple combined contamination of grassland gramineous plants and legumes by the mycotoxins <...>