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CORESTA Meeting, Agronomy/Phytopathology, 2017, Santa Cruz do Sul, AP 47

Pesticide residues in and on tobacco – a mystery?! Part II

BILLENKAMP N.; DECLERCQ M.
NiCoTa GmbH, Rheinstetten, Germany

In the past years big differences in the levels of pesticide residues for the registered fungicide Luna Sensation (250 g/l Trifloxistrobin, 250 g/l Fluopyram) were observed between the results of residue trials from the years 2011 and 2012 and the levels detected at grower sites. Therefore, in 2015 pesticide residue evaluation, especially with Luna Sensation, were conducted to a more substantial extent, i.e. analysing whole leaves, lamina and midribs. By reason of the results of the 2015 evaluation (Declercq, 2017) in 2016 this study was continued by analysing all applied pesticides used at the NiCoTa tobacco production site. The objective of these studies was to evaluate the residue behaviour of different pesticides, depending on the part of the leaves, the location and irrigation. Ten different active materials, representing fungicides, insecticides and suckericides, were under investigation. Flue-cured tobacco leaves from five to six reapings and two locations were separated into whole leaves, lamina and midrib samples. Besides sampling from treated tobacco, completely untreated tobacco was collected in the same way and was analysed for all materials, too. The ten materials differed regarding the absolute levels of the residues, the ratios between whole leaves, lamina and midribs, the locations and the contamination of complete untreated tobacco. In general the levels in midribs were much less compared to whole leaves and lamina and the levels in the first harvest were higher than in the subsequent ones. As a conclusion of these two years investigations, when talking about pesticide residues it is necessary to give as much information as possible, i.e. for example, which parts of the plants were analysed or a description of the climatic conditions. But nevertheless, in some cases, the residue levels will still not be explainable.