Fungi belonging to the Aspergillus flavus/parasiticus group were consistently isolated from soil collected in fields of corn (Zea mays) and other crops in Iowa over a 3-yr period. The population recovered declined from an estimated 1,231 colonies per gram of dry soil in fall 1988 to 396 colonies per gram in fall 1990. Aflatoxin-producing isolates declined from 65% in 1988 to 14% in 1990, whereas sclerotia-producing isolates increased from 23 to 68% over the same period. Similar trends were observed in the isolates obtained from corn debris sampled from the fields in 1988 and 1990
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Judy F. Shearer (1992) studied this question.