Present Situation of Insecticides and Acaricides Use and Their Residues in Tomato Fruits in Al-Ahsa Oasis

(Mohammed Jamal facilitate Hajjar and Mohamed Salem Chikhan)

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Abstract

Farmers8217; quick solution to protect their crop from pest infestation is the use of pesticides. Problems of high residues are increasing due to misuse forms such as timing or techniques of applications. This led to failure to reach proper efficiency that is compensated by increasing the number of applications during the growth season. In this study, a questioner survillliance with 36 farmers in 12 separated villages was conducted to define the actual present situation of use and handling of pesticides by farmers in Al-Ahsa. Samples taken every 15 days for 4 months were collected from localy field produced and imported tomato. The samples were analysed to detect the level and identity of pesticides deposits in the fruits using Multi-stage Extraction method of Multi-Residual Pesticides, approved by EPA No (3545). and the results were confirmed by using GC MS. Such work can reflect the situation of pesticides usage in the kingdom. The results of field survillliance reflects that most of the sampled farmers were used the pesticides upon the recommendation of the agricultural specialist who are employed in the farm, or in the Extension and rural Unites at the Ministry of Agriculture. About 80% of questioned farmers respected the post-harvest interval (PHI). Fourty-four percent of the farmers used one application/ month on the growing crops, and 36% of them twice/ month. These findings explained why most farmers were respecting PHI. The deposit of insecticides on the local and imported tomatoes for the four months period were nil as no insecticide residues were detected in collected samples. Key Words: Insecticides, Pesticide residues, PHI, GAP, Tomato.
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