Evaluation of dissipation, unit–unit-variability and terminal residue of etoxazole residues in strawberries from two different parts in Egypt

Decline pattern and dietary risk assessment of spinetoram in grapes under Egyptian field conditions

Spinetoram is one of the most extensively used insecticides globally and is a new spinosyn-based insecticide registered for direct treatment of Egyptian grapes. This work established and validated a developed method for determining spinetoram in grape berries and leaves using the QuEChERS coupled LC-MS/MS technique. The average recoveries ranged between 98.52-101.19% and 100.53-104.93%, with RSDs of 2.74-6.21% and 2.79-7.26% for grape berries and leaves, respectively. Spinetoram residues degraded in grape berries and leaves through a first-order kinetic, with an estimated half-life (t1/2) of 4.3 and 2.8 days in grape berries and leaves, respectively, and significant degradation (91.4-97.5%, respectively) after 14 days. Besides, the terminal residues of spinetoram detected in grape berries and leaves samples ranged between 0.017-0.077 mg‧kg-1 and 0.79-0.023 mg·kg-1, respectively, when applied two to three times at a single recommended rate, while it was varied between 0.026-0.44mg‧kg-1 and 0.79-0.023mg‧kg-1 when applied two to three times at a double recommended rate, respectively. A dietary risk assessment was conducted using scientific data from field trials, acceptable daily intake (ADI), and food consumption. It was determined that no noteworthy health hazards were connected to eating grape berries and leaves that had been treated with spinetoram since the risk quotients (RQs) were ≤ 0.4.

Dissipation pattern and dietary risk assessment of chlorfenapyr and methomyl in corn under Egyptian field conditions

Corn is the second most widely farmed grain for human consumption. Low corn productivity due to damage caused by pests has led to using pesticides to control pest infestations. However, the uncontrolled application of pesticides on corn harms both environmental and human health. Accordingly, field experiments followed good agricultural practices to investigate the dissipation pattern and terminal residues of chlorfenapyr and methomyl in corn and compare the values with established safety limits. Gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometer coupled with the quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe technique was used to analyze residues of chlorfenapyr and methomyl in corn. The average recoveries varied from 94% to 105%, with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 8%-13% for chlorfenapyr and from 99% to 111%, with RSDs of 10-16% for methomyl. Chlorfenapyr and methomyl residues degraded in corn following a first-order kinetic model, with an estimated half-life (t1/2) of 3.9 and 2.8 days, respectively, and significant degradation (91.4%-98.1.5%, respectively) after 14 days. Although the maximum residue limits of chlorfenapyr and methomyl for corn are yet to be formulated in Egypt, the long-term dietary risk for those pesticides was acceptable, with arisk quotient < 100%, according to the national assessments. These findings are required to guide the correct and safe application of these insecticides in Egypt.

Occurrence, dissipation and processing factors of multi-pesticides in goji berry

As medicine and food homology substance, goji berry is consumed worldwide in the form of fresh, dried and juice; however, pesticide residues have become one of the problems that essentially threaten its quality during cultivation and processing. In this study, a total of 75 dried goji berries were sampled from markets across China, and for the determination of 62 analytes, 28 pesticides were identified. Nine pesticides with high detectable rates and residual levels were selected for folia spraying, and their half-lives were found to range from 1.04 to 2.21 d. The processing factors (PFs) of juice were between 0.25 and 1.02, and this was mainly related with their octanol-water partition coefficient (logKow values). Washing could reduce pesticides residues to varying degrees with the removal rates between 17.00% and 74.05%. Sun drying with higher PF values in the range of 0.61-5.91 exhibited more obvious enrichment effect compared to oven drying. Commercial goji berry had cumulative chronic dietary risks with the hazard index (HI) values of 1.61%-4.97%. Its acute risk quotients (HQas) for consumers were 543.32%-585.92% and were mainly due to insecticides. These results provide important references for rationalizing pesticide application during goji berry cultivation and for the improvement of process to ensure food safety.

Dissipation behavior, residue distribution, and exposure risk assessment of tebufenpyrad and milbemectin acaricides in strawberries under open field conditions

Strawberries are a favorite fruit for most people, but the residues of pesticides on strawberries might be risky to human health. Tebufenpyrad and milbemectin are broad-spectrum acaricides with insecticide properties authorized for use on strawberries in Egypt. As a result, it is crucial to investigate their residues in the final product to ensure customers' safety. Consequently, field trials were conducted following the Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) to study the dissipation rate and terminal residues of tebufenpyrad and milbemectin on strawberries. Tebufenpyrad and milbemectin residues in strawberries declined due to first-order decay process, showing significant degradation (88.5% and 94.7%, respectively) after 14 days. Risk assessment study was carried out by comparing the national estimated daily intake (NEDI) to the acceptable daily intake (ADI). The results demonstrated that the dietary risk posed by the residues of tebufenpyrad and milbemectin in strawberry fruits was acceptable for consumers. It is envisaged that the current study's findings would support the safe application of tebufenpyrad and milbemectin to strawberries and perhaps other crops in Egypt and other countries with similar climatic conditions.

Strawberry-DS: Dataset of annotated strawberry fruits images with various developmental stages

Strawberry (Fragaria X ananassa) is one of the most popular fruits cultivated around the world. That is owing to its unique flavor and nutritious properties in addition to the wide usage utility in fresh or processed condition. Strawberry fruits also have a significant economic importance around the world with strong potential as an export commodity. As a matter of fact, investigation and assessment of various strawberry fruit characteristics at different developmental stages is crucial for candidate cultivars selection in fruit plantation as well as fruit yield prediction. Strawberry fruits developmental stage is conventionally applied visually based on expert knowledge, which is a time and labor exhaustive process. Thus, this paper presents a dataset, namely Strawberry-DS (Strawberry-Developmental Stages) dataset, consisting of strawberry fruits (Festival CV type) expert-annotated images at various developmental stages. Data collection was performed on site during the period between January and March from a greenhouse located in the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate (CLAC) at the Agricultural Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in Giza, Egypt. The dataset comprises 247 high-resolution RGB (.jpg) images annotated manually, using Roboflow Annotate annotation tool with reference to ground truth Region of Interest (RoI), and presented in YOLO (.txt files) format. The presented Strawberry-DS dataset can be generally used for developing various automated models of strawberry fruits detection, fruits maturity stage classification, as well as visual counting, through taking into account the visual features such as shape, color, size, and texture of strawberry fruits. Strawberry-DS is freely available at: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/z6dtfdpzz8/1.

Dissipation kinetics and exposure of spirotetramat and pymetrozine in open fields, a prelude to risk assessment of green bean consumption

Determination and dissipation kinetics of pymetrozine and spirotetramat in green bean were studied using a QuEChERS method coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Pymetrozine recoveries ranged between 88.4-93.7%, with relative standard deviation (RSD) of 5.5-14.4%. For spirotetramat the recoveries ranged between 91.7-103.4%, and the RSD were in the range of 3.2 to 12.4%. The limits of quantification (LOQs) were 0.01 mg/kg and 0.005 mg/kg for pymetrozine and spirotetramat, respectively.The developed analytical method was used to study the degradation rates of pymetrozine and spirotetramat in green bean grown in open field. Results showed that pymetrozine and spirotetramat followed the first-order kinetics model with half-lives of 3.3 days and 4.2 days, respectively. Furthermore, risk assessment was carried out which showed that, the chronic risk quotient (RQc) values for pymetrozine and spirotetramat were much lower than 100%. The present results indicated that the health risks posed for consumers by the pymetrozine and spirotetramat residues were negligible at the recommended dosages.

Dissipation rate and exposure risk of trifloxystrobin in dry climatic field environments

The investigation of the magnitude of residues after application of a pesticide is important to ensure consumer safety and is also a regulatory requirement to grant authorization. To address those issues, the behavior of trifloxystrobin residues was investigated in outdoor strawberry and cucumber cultivations, following the recommended and more critical agricultural practices under Egyptian dry climatic conditions. Fruits were collected at several pre-harvest intervals and analyzed with the Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe (QuEChERS) extraction protocol followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The limit of quantitation of the method was 0.001 mg kg−1. When trifloxystrobin was applied on the field, the half-lives were 2.4 days in cucumbers and 6.2 days in strawberries. Risk assessment showed that chronic and acute dietary exposure to residues following the investigated agricultural patterns are of no concern to consumers.

Determination of five pesticides in kumquat: Dissipation behaviors, residues and their health risk assessment under field conditions

The present study was carried out to profile the dissipation patterns and residues of five pesticides (triazophos, profenofos, chlorpyrifos, etoxazole and bifenthrin) on kumquat using QuEChERS method coupled with HPLC-MS/MS. The corresponding dietary health risks were also estimated. In the method validation, satisfactory results of good linearity (r2 ≥ 0.9956), sensitivity (limits of quantification ≤0.01 mg/kg), recoveries (71.0-95.7%) with relative standard deviations (0.70-9.4%) were obtained. The half-lives of the five pesticides in kumquat were 13.6-38.5 d under field conditions according to first-order kinetics. Based on the final residue experiment, dietary exposure risks of profenofos, chlorpyrifos, etoxazole and bifenthrin were all acceptably low, with RQc and RQa values of 0.00199-0.122 and 0.00145-0.200, respectively. However, exposure intake of triazophos posed unacceptable acute and chronic health risks for Chinese residents, especially for children with RQa and RQc up to 4.25 and 2.19. Forbidden use suggestion of triazophos and recommended MRLs of profenofos and bifenthrin were put forward in kumquat for safe production and consumption. This work was significant in providing guidance on appropriate application and MRL establishment of pesticides in kumquat.

Dissipation behavior and dietary risk assessment of pyridaben in open field strawberries and cucumber under Egyptian cultivation conditions

Pyridaben, an inhibitor of mitochondrial electron transport at complex I, is authorized in Egypt as an insecticide/acaricide for strawberries and cucumbers; thus the investigation of residues in the final consumed product is essential as to ensure consumer safety and trade barriers. Therefore, residue trials were conducted according to the in force and more critical Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) as to investigate the dissipation rate of the compound on both crops and the terminal residues in the final products. Results showed that the residue decline fits a first-order decay process with calculated half-lives of 1 and 6.4 days for cucumbers and strawberries, respectively. Dietary risk assessment was performed based on the risk quotients (RQ) method and the EFSA PRIMo model demonstrating that the dietary exposure to pyridaben residues from cucumber and strawberry consumption, applied either according to the in force or more critical GAPs, does not pose unacceptable health risk to Egyptian and European consumers.

Investigation of the dissipation behaviour and exposure of spitotetramat, flonicamid, imidacloprid and pymetrozine in open field strawberries in Egypt

The dissipation behaviour and the consumer risk assessment of spitotetramat, flonicamid, imidacloprid and pymetrozine in open field strawberries were studied. Insecticides were applied at the authorised levels and the more critical good agricultural practice regimes (GAP). The initial concentrations varied from 0.069 to 1.75 mg kg^-1 depending on the compound, while the dissipation half-lives and terminal residues, 14 days from the last applications, were similar. After application according to the authorised pattern the half-lives were 2.8 days for flonicamid and 3.2 days for spitotetramat, imidacloprid and pymetrozine. The dietary risk assessment, performed using the hazard quotient and the EFSA PRIMo model showed no concern to consumer health with exposure values <2% of the acceptable daily intake (ADI) and <32% of the acute reference dose (ARfD) of each compound.

Residues and Safety Evaluation of Etoxazole, Bifenazate and Its Metabolite Bifenazate-diazene in Citrus Under Open-Field Conditions

The residues of bifenazate (sum of bifenazate and bifenazate-diazene) and etoxazole in whole citrus and pulp collected from twelve regions of China were monitored and their chronic dietary risk to consumer were also evaluated. The citrus samples were extracted by a QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) method, and analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). The average recoveries of target compounds were ranged from 83 to 100% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 0.59-11.8%. The limits of quantification (LOQs) for three analytes were 0.01 mg/kg. At the interval to harvest of 20 and 30 days, the residues of total bifenazate and etoxazole were from below 0.02 to 0.26 mg/kg and from below 0.01 to 0.30 mg/kg in citrus samples. The chronic risk quotients (RQs) were below 100%, indicating no unacceptable risk to consumers.

Residue behavior of etoxazole under field conditions in Egypt and estimation of processing factors during the production of strawberry juice and purée

The degradation under field conditions and the residue behavior of etoxazole during juicing and purée making was evaluated. Etoxazole residues were determined by HPLC-UV at six different Pre Harvest Intervals (PHIs) as to estimate the degradation of residue in fruits. Samples with significant residues were processed and residue were determined after juicing and purée making. The effect of washing was also estimated. Processing Factors (PFs) for etoxazole after each step were less than 1 and the PFs of the overall processes were lower than 0.85 for washing fruits, 0.13 for juice and 0.04 for purée. The studied processes could obviously reduce the pesticide residues that are present in the raw strawberries. Uncertainties in the use of the PFs were identified due to the potential formation of metabolites during the processes.