Multielemental fingerprinting as a tool for authentication of organic wheat, barley, faba bean, and potato

Kristian Holst Laursen, Jan Kofod Schjørring, Jørgen Eivind Olesen, Margrethe Askegaard, Ulrich Halekoh, Søren Husted

    83 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The multielemental composition of organic and conventional winter wheat, spring barley, faba bean, and potato was analyzed with inductively coupled plasmaóptical emission spectrometry (ICPÓES) and -mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The crops were cultivated in two years at three geographically different field locations, each accommodating one conventional and two organic cropping systems. The conventional system produced the highest harvest yields for all crops except the nitrogen-fixing faba bean, whereas the dry matter content of each crop was similar across systems. No systematic differences between organic and conventional crops were found in the content of essential plant nutrients when statistically analyzed individually. However, chemometric analysis of multielemental fingerprints comprising up to 14 elements allowed discrimination. The discrimination power was further enhanced by analysis of up to 25 elements derived from semiquantitative ICP-MS. It is concluded that multielemental fingerprinting with semiquantitative ICP-MS and chemometrics has the potential to enable authentication of organic crops.

    Original languageEnglish
    JournalJournal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
    Volume59
    Issue number9
    Pages (from-to)4385–4396
    Number of pages12
    ISSN0021-8561
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 11 May 2011

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