Dr Ehrenstorfer: what’s new this month - December 2022

Events such as the war in Ukraine and Covid lockdowns in China are pushing producers towards unfamiliar suppliers for their raw materials and intermediate goods. Our first priority at LGC is to guarantee the safety of food and the environment through reliable analytical testing - underpinned by the use of quality reference materials. In this newsletter, we outline the latest Dr Ehrenstorfer news and new releases, in the hope that you’ll discover your perfect reference standard.

A heritage in pesticides, a history of supporting you

We started Dr Ehrenstorfer because we thought about what our customers needed. In 1975, we realised that no one was making the pesticide reference materials that German laboratories required to comply with new testing regulations – and so we were the first to produce them. Over the past five decades, we’ve continued to combine our passion for innovation and quality with a laser focus on developing the analytical tools you need to do your job. To celebrate our heritage in pesticides, and our history of supporting our customers, we’ve produced a series of interview articles and videos that give an insight into our quest for quality and plans for the future. We hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we enjoy helping you.

Interesting insecticides – reference materials for thiacloprid and thionazin

Since 1975, we’ve consistently adapted and expanded our pesticides portfolio to meet changing regulations, technology and quality requirements - ensuring we can offer you the most up-to-date products to meet your needs. This month, we’re releasing two ISO 17025-accredited standards to aid your detection of the insecticides thiacloprid and thionazin – both of which are banned in large parts of the world.

In the European Union, growers should have stopped using the neonicotinoid pesticide thiacloprid by February of last year - following concerns about harm to bee populations and human health. However, its use is – somewhat controversially – still permitted in America on certain fruit and vegetable crops, at tolerances of between 0.05 and 1.0 parts per billion. Meanwhile thionazin – an organophosphate insecticide and human neurotoxicant – is no longer approved in either the US or the EU. According to the Pesticide Properties DataBase, it is “considered obsolete but may be available in some countries.” As a backup to official bans and limits on toxic substances, it is vital to regularly check food, water, soil, and the surrounding environment in order to keep the world safe. That’s why our ISO-accredited standards are expertly designed to help your laboratory detect and quantify harmful substances.

Helping to ensure healthy use of herbicides – nicosulfuron and fluometuron standards

Nicosulfuron is used to control grass weeds in corn and sorghum crops, and is approved for use in both the US and the European Union – although its classification as a ‘persistent and toxic substance’ in Europe means it’s also on the EU’s list for substitution. To aid your analysis, we’re releasing a deuterium labelled nicosulfuron reference material that can be used as an internal standard to quantify the analyte in dairy milk by LC-MS/MS. The advantage of using Stable Isotope Labelled compounds as standards is that they are identical to the target analyte, except for a few isotopically labelled atoms. Therefore, the instrument response for both the target analyte and the internal standard will be nearly identical. We’ve also developed an ISO 17034-grade single solution reference standard for fluometuron – a grass-controlling pesticide that has been used on cotton and sugarcane in America since the 1960s. However, it can now only be applied legally to cotton crops in the US, and is only approved for use in three EU countries – Greece, Spain and Italy. Due to the confirmed harmful effect of fluometuron – a substance rated as hazardous by several governmental and environmental bodies - it is recommended to check its concentration in food and the surrounding environment wherever it can still be used legally.