DETERMINATION OF SYNTHETIC AND BIO-INSECTICIDES RESIDUES DURING APHID (MYZUS PERSICAE (SULZER) CONTROL ON CABBAGE CROP THROUGH HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY

Pesticides, as a key component of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), help out an important role in increasing agricultural production, but their abuse has led to the environmental problems including health hazards to humans. Awareness regarding the food safety has increased the demand for organically produced food, which necessitates evaluating the performance of biopesticides as safer alternatives to conventional insecticides. Azadirachtin based neem insecticides are environment friendly. Inspite of having diverse pest control properties their use is limited due to the instability of azadirachtin which needs its application at short time intervals. Whereas spinosad, derived from a soil born bacterium- Saccharopolyspora spinosa is also being used as a safer alternative to synthetic insecticides as an environment friendly product. In the present study Azadirachtin based Biosal and bacterial derived Spinosad were tested against aphids on the cabbage crop, in comparison with three synthetic insecticides viz, imidacloprid, endosulfan and profenofos, with emphasis on their residual determination through High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The efficiency of mini column was also observed for sample clean up and found effective and time saving simultaneously. Amongst bioinsecticides, spinosad was found to be more persistent in cabbage leaves and heads (average half life, 3.47 days) as compared to biosal (average half life, 1.66 days), whereas conventional insecticides were persistent in the crop (average half life, 2.57, 3.14, and 2.11 days) for imidacloprid, endosulfan and profenofos, respectively. The implication of results for food safety is discussed.