Monitoring of Benomyl Residue in Mushroom Marketed in Hamadan City

Introduction &

Pesticide residues in environment and food have a negative impact on the health of living organisms. Therefore, this study was carried out for evaluation of benomyl residues in mushroom marketed in Hamadan city in 2014 using spectrophotometry.

10 specimens of mushroom were collected from greenhouses and market basket of Hamadan city. After preparation and processing the samples in the laboratory, be-nomyl residues in samples were determined using a spectrophotometric method in 3 replica-tions. All statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS statistical package.

The mean concentration of benomyl residues in samples were 5.90±0.75, 2.10± 0.487, 40.04±1.346, 0.32±0.044, 14.0±0.785, 1.54±0.304, 40.0±0.45, 0.87±0.055, 0.66± 0.032 and 49.60±0.303 µg kg-1 and more than the maximum residue limit (MRL) provided by the World Health Organization (10 ppb). The results of the comparison of the mean concentration of pesticide residues among samples revealed significant differences in most of the samples (P<0.05).

The results showed that mean concentrations of benomyl residues in mushroom samples were exceeding that of the MRL. Therefore, it is essential to impart proper education to the farming community about hazards involved in the overuse of toxic pesticides. Also, codification of laws and their enforcement and implementation of programs for the regular periodic monitoring of pesticide residues in foodstuffs especially in vegetables cultivated un-der greenhouse conditions at the national level to protect consumers’ health are recom-mended.