Residue and dietary risk assessment of sixteen pesticides in sorghum by UHPLC-MS/MS

Although pesticides play a critical role in sorghum cultivation, their residual presence poses significant risks to human health. A rapid and sensitive UHPLC-MS/MS method was developed for the simultaneous determination of residues from 11 fungicides, 3 herbicides, and 2 insecticides in sorghum. The three key phases of the QuEChERS method-extraction, salting-out, and clean-up-were systematically optimized using a three-stage approach with blank matrix controls. The method showed good recovery (82-107%) at three spiked levels (0.001, 0.01, 0.1 mg/kg) with relative standard deviations (RSD) below 18.8%, and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.001 mg/kg. Three insecticides (chlorantraniliprole, clothianidin, and imidacloprid) and two fungicides (azoxystrobin and tebuconazole) were detected in the 38 sorghum samples, with concentrations ranging from