Isotopic and multielemental fingerprinting of organically and conventionally grown potatoes

ABSTRACT

Two marker combinations were used for the differentiation of organically produced from conventionally produced potatoes and also for the geographical origin identification. Fifty-seven samples (from Romanian local producers or imported) were analysed from the stable isotopic (isotope ratio mass spectrometry) and elemental profile (inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) point of view. In order to assess the best marker combination, both isotopic and elemental experimental results were subject to chemometric analysis. The statistical tests performed were ANOVA test, Pearson correlation, principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). For a more comprehensive differentiation between organic vs. conventional potato samples, LDA was applied, and 94.7 % of original cases were correctly classified and the percentage obtained in cross-validation procedure was 91.2 %. Regarding the geographic origin classification, LDA provided an initial classification of 96.5 %, while for cross-validation the percentage was 87.7. LDA found δ¹⁵N, Cd, Ca, Cu and Zn as best discrimination markers between organically and conventionally grown potatoes. The strongest predictors for Romania vs. foreign geographical areas along LDA were seen to be Ca, P, Co, Ni and δ¹³C.

KEYWORDS:

• Carbon-13
• food
• forensic
• hydrogen-2
• natural isotope abundance variations
• nitrogen-15
• oxygen-18
• potatoes
• production history
• Romania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The financial support for this work was provided by UEFISCDI, PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0159.