Pesticides have been widely used in agriculture for pest controls and routinely determining pesticide residues in crops is often regulated to avoid exceeding their maximum residue levels, which could assist to ensure food safety and consumer’s health. However, pesticides could also persist in soils after they are applied and continually harm to soil and agroecosystems for days or even years. Analytical methods are needed to determine multiple pesticide residues in soils to better assess their risk, but often ignored. In this study, an efficient and accurate analytical method was developed to quantitative determine over 350 pesticides (including insecticides, acaricides, nematodes, fungicides, and herbicides) in three soils with different textures and organic matter content. Through standard addition, soil samples were extracted by a modified QuEChERS method followed by a gas- and a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS) analysis. Results showed that the recoveries for 75% of the target pesticides from the three soils were ranged between 70 and 120%, and the relative standard deviation was less than 20% for all the tested pesticides. Additionally, the method detection limits were as low as 0.2 µg kg<sup>-1</sup> and up to 10.0 µg kg<sup>-1</sup>. The established analytical method for multiple pesticide residues in soils could be applicable to the agricultural soils under both conventional and organic management practices.

Establishment of multiresidue analysis of over 350 pesticides in soils using a modified QuEChERS method coupled with GC-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS

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ACS Fall 2022

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