Monitoring of pesticides residues in soil samples from the southern districts of Jordan in 2016/2017

Abstract

One hundred soil samples were collected from five southern districts of Jordan during 2016 and 2017 to monitor the pesticides residues using LC-MS/MS. The used LC-MS/MS method was able to analyze 448 pesticides as shown in Table 2. The samples were collected from the districts Karak, Tafila, Ma’an, Aqaba, and Ghor Al-Safi. Pesticides found with high frequency were imidacloprid, metalaxyl, pyridaben, myclobutanil, difenconazole, chlorfenapyr, cypermethrin, oxyfluorfen, and 2, 4-dimethylphenyl-N-methylform amid. The soil samples containing high pesticide’s contamination were cultivated with the following crops in the following order: tomatoes > cucumber > apple > aubergines (eggplants) > pepper and courgettes. The least contaminated districts were Aqaba and Ghor Al-Safi. This could be due to high temperature in summer which could reach 48 °C.

Keywords:

• Pesticides
• residues
• soil
• LC-MS/MS
• Jordan

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Environment and the University of Jordan for their help and support. The authors also thank Naba Hikma laboratories for Industrial and Testing Services for doing the necessary analyzes.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest. We declare that none of the authors have any competitive interest in the manuscript.