Pesticide residues in Portuguese strawberries grown in 2009-2010 using integrated pest management and organic farming

Pesticides are among the most widely used chemicals in the world. Because of the widespread use of agricultural chemicals in food production, people are exposed to low levels of pesticide residues through their diets. Scientists do not yet have a total understanding of the health effects of these pesticide residues. This work aims to determine differences in terms of pesticide residue content in Portuguese strawberries grown using different agriculture practices. The Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe sample preparation method was conducted and shown to have good performance for multiclass pesticides extraction in strawberries. The screening of 25 pesticides residue was performed by gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. In quantitative validation, acceptable performances were achieved with recoveries of 70-120 and < 12 % residual standard deviation for 25 pesticides. Good linearity was obtained for all the target compounds, with highly satisfactory repeatability. The limits of detection were in the range of 0.1-28 mu g/kg. The method was applied to analyze strawberry samples from organic and integrated pest management (IPM) practices harvested in 2009-2010. The results showed the presence of fludioxonil, bifenthrin, mepanipyrim, tolylfluanid, cyprodinil, tetraconazole, and malathion when using IPM below the maximum residue levels.