Investigation on the residue levels of nine frequently used pesticides in greenhouse grown tomato samples by QuEChERS extraction using GC-MS and HPLC analysis in Hamedan province, I. R. Iran

Suitable conditions bring about high population of pests or diseases in green-houses and therefore, frequent applications of pesticides occur in this production system which causes public anxiety about pesticide residue in green-house grown crops such as tomato. The present report is the result of an investigation performed on pesticide residue level measurements in green-house grown tomato in Hamadan province. In this study, 43 tomato samples were taken from the green-houses across the province and the residue levels of nine pesticides in each sample were measured. The results indicated that 95.4% of the samples were completely free of all measured insecticides. In 4.6% of the samples the residue of Chlorpyrifos was detected of which the residue level of only one sample (2.3%) was higher than the Maximum residue limit (MRL) for this pesticide in tomato (MRL = 0.1 ppm).