High-throughput simultaneous analysis of multiple pesticides in grain, fruit, and vegetables by GC-MS/MS

ABSTRACT

A multi-component quantitative GC-MS/MS method for monitoring and inspecting agricultural products was developed for the simultaneous determination of 365 pesticide residues in grain, beans, fruit and vegetables. Twenty-six pesticides that have been authorised in foreign countries but not in Korea were included in the newly adapted Korean positive list system. The method was validated by analysing spiked samples at three concentrations (0.01, 0.05, and 0.1 mg/kg) for brown rice, soy beans, mandarin orange, potato and green pepper matrice, which represented grain, beans, fruit, and vegetables. More than 95% of 365 compounds satisfied the validation criteria of 70–120% recovery and ≤20% relative standard deviation obtained through the proposed simultaneous multi-component analysis. Twenty-two types of pesticides were detected in 76 food samples, whose concentrations were below the maximum residue limits. Among the newly added pesticides, lambda-cyhalothrin, an analogue of cyhalothrin, was detected in peaches. The method can be applied to the analysis and inspection of pesticide residues in domestic and imported agricultural products for safety control.

KEYWORDS:

• Pesticide
• grain
• bean
• fruit
• vegetable
• GC-MS/MS

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest are reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

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Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, Republic of Korea [Project No. 18161MFDS014].