Monitoring of pesticide residues in apples from Slovakia for baby food production

Abstract

There is a basic lack of information about the presence of pesticide residues in apples obtained from farms in Slovakia collaborating with baby food producer. Residues of several pesticides (widely used for the protection on apple trees) have been determined in apples (a common raw material for the baby food production and baby food) from Slovakia (agricultural area in the South of Slovakia). The analysis of the pesticides was performed by gas chromatography on CP-Sil 5 CB (15 m long, 0.15 mm I.D., film thickness 0.15 μm) with normal bore retention gap (1 m long, 0.32 mm I.D.) using the subsequent determination with MS detector in SIM mode, after the acetonitrile extraction of the pesticide residues from apples, the clean-up and preconcentration steps of samples with SPE-NH₂. For the study pesticides belonging to various groups were selected, such as organophosporus pesticides, oximinoacetates, anilinopyrimidines, triazoles, and triazines pyrethroids. The GC-MS analysis of pesticide residues in all samples searched showed that most of the detected and quantified residues were below 10 μg/kg which corresponds to the maximum residual limit for pesticide residues in baby food.