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Apples from South Tyrol can often be found on supermarket shelves. Pesticides are used several times throughout the year to ensure fruit looks perfect – and they are now not only widespread in the region’s growing areas, as a research team reports in the journal “Communications Earth & Environment”.

The Vinschgau in the west of South Tyrol is the largest contiguous apple growing area in Europe. Pesticides can be found throughout the valley up to higher elevations, including in protected areas. There are more than 7,000 apple farmers in the region who, according to the research, produce ten percent of all European apples.

Conventional cultivation there is mainly dependent on synthetic pesticides that are spread using blowers to combat pests such as the codling moth and fungal diseases. This means that a high degree of drift to the environment is possible, especially in windy conditions.

The team led by environmental scientist Carsten Brühl from the Technical University of Rhineland-Palatinate of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) examined eleven so-called elevation transects along the valley axis – which extends from the valley to the mountain peaks. Samples were taken at altitude every 300 meters along these routes on four days in May 2022. Plant material and soil samples from a total of 53 locations.

Protected alpine ecosystems

“From an ecotoxicological point of view, the Vinschgau Valley is particularly interesting because the valley has very intensive agriculture with many pesticides and the mountains have sensitive alpine ecosystems, some of which are strictly protected,” explains Brühl.

Previous research has shown in other regions that pesticides can spread significantly outside agricultural areas and, for example, contaminate insects in nature reserves. Contrary to what was previously generally believed, the plant protection products and pesticides in Vinschgau do not only occur in the plants and the environment, the scientists report.

Problematic for butterflies

At higher altitudes and with distance from the apple orchards, the amounts of pesticides found decrease, but even in the higher Vinschgau, where hardly any apple cultivation takes place, various substances can still be found in the soil and vegetation. “We found the resources in remote mountain valleys, on the peaks and in national parks. They have no business there,” says Brühl. The reason for the widespread distribution is probably the sometimes strong valley winds and thermals in Vinschgau.

Even at the low concentrations measured, pesticides can lead to so-called sublethal, i.e. not directly fatal, effects on organisms, the researchers explain. A reduction in egg laying is conceivable for butterflies. However, until now it is largely unclear what effect chronic exposure to pesticides in low concentrations and mixtures of different pesticides has.

Such mixtures would not be taken into account in the environmental risk assessment as part of the approval process, but the substances would be considered separately. “This has nothing to do with the reality of the applications in the field or in the orchard and the fate in the environment,” says Brühl.

27 pesticides detected

In total, the researchers detected 27 pesticides: 10 insecticides, 11 fungicides and 6 herbicides. “The concentrations we found were not high, but it has been proven that pesticides affect soil life even at very low concentrations,” explains co-author Johann Zaller from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (BOKU).

The measurements were also carried out in early May and, according to the researchers, additional resources were deployed during the growing season until harvest. In conventional cultivation, on average dozens of pesticide applications are common during the season, making more complex mixtures of multiple substances and temporarily higher concentrations likely.

Acceptance of imperfect apples

According to the analysis, valley meadows near apple orchards were particularly contaminated, but pesticide residues were even found in remote mountain meadows at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters. One of the substances found was the insecticide methoxyphenozide. It was said to be found in almost half of soil and plant samples. In Germany, the use of methoxyphenozide has been banned since 2018 due to its environmental damage.

The team concludes from the results that the technology for applying pesticides in apple cultivation obviously needs to be improved. A drastic reduction in the use of pesticides is necessary. It is also important to promote the so-called functional biodiversity in the apple orchards and their environment – for example with natural, flowery grassland to provide more living space for natural opponents of apple pests. However, there is also demand from consumers and supermarkets, the researchers said: More acceptance is needed of apples that do not look as perfect, as is often the case when fewer or no pesticides are used. (sda/dpa)