Acceptable risk of fenpropathrin and emamectin benzoate in the minor crop Mugua (Chaenomeles speciosa) after postharvest processing.

Production of minor crop varieties often requires intensive pesticide use, which raises serious concerns over food safety and human health. Chaenomeles speciosa (Sweet) Nakai as one of the representative of this kind of crops is therefore used for investigating the residue behavior of fenpropathrin and emamectin benzoate, a synthetic pyrethroid and macrocyclic lactone widely used as an insecticide, respectively, from cultivation to C. speciosa postharvest processing. Results showed that the degradation trends of those selected insecticides in C. speciosa followed first-order kinetics with an average half-life (t1/2) of 3.7-4.1 days and a dissipation rate of 97% over 14 days. The terminal residues of fenpropathrin and emamectin benzoate at 120 and 3 g a.i./ha were below the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (FAD, 1.00 mg/kg) and European Union (EU, 0.01 mg/kg) maximum residue limits (MRLs) in papaya species, respectively, when measured 14 days after the final application, which suggested that the use of these insecticides was safe for humans. Postharvest processing procedure resulted in a |90% reduction of the insecticides. Moreover, the hazard quotient (HQ) for C. speciosa decoction (with processing factors) indicated an acceptable risk for human consumption. These findings provide the scientific evidence of reasonable application and risk assessment of the selected pesticide residues in C. speciosa.

Dissipation Behavior of Three Fungicides during the Industrial Processing of PaeoniaeRadix Alba and Associated Processing Factors.

Before being administered as medicinal products, Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) must be processed and decocted for human consumption. While the presence of pesticide residues in CHMs is a major concern, pesticide dissipation behavior during CHM processing has rarely been reported. In this study, the dissipation of three pesticide residues in the CHM Paeoniae Radix Alba (PRA) was investigated during each step of industrial processing. The boiling process was found to significantly reduce pesticide residues (61-89%), and the peeling process also contributed to pesticide degradation (29-68%). The high temperature (60 °C) during the drying process led to further pesticide degradation. The processing factors of all three pesticides after each processing step were less than one, and the processing factors for the overall process were lower than 0.027, indicating that industrial processing clearly reduced the amount of pesticide residues (97.3-99.4%). The findings provide guidance for the safe use of fungicides in CHMs and can help establish maximum residue limits for PRA to reduce human exposure to pesticides.