Residues of the fungicide famoxadone in grapes and its fate during wine production

Abstract

Famoxadone is a recently applied fungicide to vines that belongs to the oxazolidinedione family. The fate of famoxadone was studied by considering the decay ratio of this fungicide during the maturation of grapes and wine production. The main factors affecting the presence of fungicide residues such as fruit growth, photodegradation, evaporation, thermodegradation and co-distillation were studied with model systems. An experimental field was treated with a commercial product containing famoxadone at the recommended dose. After this application, residues of famoxadone were found in grapes at 0.27 ± 0.06 mg kg^–1. In this field experiment, the half-life (t _1/2;) of famoxadone, which is described by pseudo-first-order kinetics (R ² = 0.74), was 18 ± 6 days, resulting from the photodegradation. The famoxadone residue levels in grapes were below the established maximum residues level for Europe (2 mg kg^–1), whilst levels in wine, carried out with and without maceration, were below the calculated limit of detection of the method.

Keywords:

• Famoxadone residues
• grapes
• wine production
• model systems

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, for financial support (SFRH/BD/4648/2001).