Pesticide residue in apples at Czech: do they comply with ´low residue production´ label?

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60461373%3A22330%2F22%3A43925290" target="_blank" >RIV/60461373:22330/22:43925290 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Pesticide residue in apples at Czech: do they comply with ´low residue production´ label?

Original language description

Apples represent an important item in the Czech consumers´ basket, nevertheless, a relatively frequent occurrence of pesticide residues is of concern. Czech producers have been focusing on minimizing residues through ´low residue production´, the practice based, among other factors, on the use of pesticides that rapidly decompose after their application. At present, some retail chains apply for the assessment of fruits / vegetables contamination so called ´action thresholds´, the highest acceptable concentration of pesticide residues in respective commodity not exceeding certain percentage of MRL, e.g., 25%. To obtain up-to-date information about the presence of pesticide residues in locally grown and imported apples and fulfilling MRLs for respective pesticides, we monitored residue profiles in a set of various authentic apple cultivares using both LC-MS / MS and GC-MS / MS methods during the years 2019-2021. 400+ compounds were monitored in this study using optimized method enabling to achieve very low limits of quantification (LOQ) with good repeatability. 265 samples of apples harvested in the Czech Republic were analysed (43.4% of total number of samples) and in other countries 56.6% of samples. Pesticide residues were found in 260 of them (98.10% of tested set). In total, 70 different pesticides were quantified. In general, contamination of apples was relatively low. A positive trend was observed when monitoring action threshold 25% MRL – it was not exceeded in 99.7% of domestic apple samples and in 99.3% of imported ones throughout the observed period. A positive trend was also observed when monitoring action threshold 1%MRL - for domestic apples 51.9% of samples in 2019, 60.7% in 2020 and 62.2% in 2021, respectively and for imported apples 39.7% of samples in 2019, 48.6% in 2020 and 57.3% in 2021).

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

40106 - Agronomy, plant breeding and plant protection; (Agricultural biotechnology to be 4.4)

Project

<a href="/en/project/LM2018100" target="_blank" >LM2018100: Infrastructure for Promoting Metrology in Food and Nutrition in the Czech Republic</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů