Monitoring of Pesticide Residues in Floricultural Crops Collected from Floral Farms and Markets in Korea

The present study aims to monitor pesticide residues in cut flowers collected from the farms and markets. Cut flowers used in this study included rose, lily and chrysanthemum collected from June to September, 2008. Samples were collected once from farms in Hwasung, Goyang (Gyeonggi-do), Inje (Gangwon-do) and thrice from wholesale market in Namdaemunm, Yangjae and Gangnam (Seoul). Total of 24 pesticides (12 fungicides, 11 pesticides and 1 acaricide) were detected from samples collected from farm and total of 64 pesticides (25 fungicides, 36 pesticides, 1 acaricide and 2 fungicides) were detected from samples collected from wholesale market. The highest detection frequency of pesticide from farm was for carbaryl (15%) and for boscalid, fluacrypyrin, fluquinconazole, methomyl, pyraclostrobin, trifloxystrohin (10%), with overall detection of 0.1-36.99 mg kg -1 . While the highest detection frequency of pesticides from wholesale market was for carbaryl, fluquinoconazole and kresoxim-methyl (18.52%), methomyl (16.6%), and methiocarb and thiacloprid (12.96%) with overall detection amount of 0.1-56.2 mg kg -1 . Higher amount of pesticides were detected in leaves than in flowers. Among the pesticides detected, detection frequency of unregistered pesticides for rose, chrysanthemum and lily was 55%, 60% and 63% collected from farms and 47%, 60% and 89% collected from markets, respectively. These pesticides require registration and further monitoring in floricultural crops.