Determination of Pesticide Residues in Strawberry (Fragaria ananassa Duch.) from Upper Punjab Districts of Pakistan

Abstract

Strawberry (Fragaria ananassa) is grown from mid-October to the end of April in Lahore, Sheikhupura, Sialkot and Gujranwala Districts of the Punjab. A huge amounts of pesticides especially fungicides are sprayed on it indiscriminately to protect it from different diseases and fungal attacks. Present experiment was planned for determination of pesticide residues in strawberry. For this purpose, 40 samples of strawberry were collected from Sheikhupura, Lahore, Sialkot, and Gujranwala districts of Punjab, Pakistan for determination of residues of Malathion, Chlorpyrifos, Profenofos, Atrazine, Carbofuron, Tricyclazole, Difenoconazole, Azoxystrobin, Tebuconazole and Cypermethrin in strawberry. The accuracy, precision, specificity, linearity, limit of detection and quantification were measured. The recovery ranged from 89.3 % to 108% with RSD ranging from 1.66 % to 14.2 %. The linearity showed reliable range (0.995–0.999). The limit of detection ranged from 0.006 to 0.04 μg g^-1. Data showed that all the samples contain multi-residues of different pesticides. Among these 40 samples pesticide residues were most often found. All the samples contained multiresidues of different pesticides. The percentage of samples having pesticides residues are , Carbofuron (50 %), Malathion (37.50 %), Profenofos (32.50 %), Chlorpyrifos(25 %), Cypermethrin (20 %), Difenoconazole  in (47.50 %), Tricyclazol in ( 52.50 %), Tebuconazole in (50.00 %), and Azoxystrobin in (20 %) of the samples analyzed.