PARENT SESSION
WP7 Human and Veterinary drugs in the environment
3:00 PM to 6:30 PM, Wednesday, 09 May 2001
Session Chair: D. Calamari
Room 7

(408) Occurence, distribution, and persistence of tetracyclines in farmland fertilized with animal slurry.

Hamscher, Gerd¹, Sczesny, Silke¹, Höper, Heinrich², Nau, Heinz¹, ^{1 2}

ABSTRACT- Occurence, distribution, and persistence of tetracyclines in farmland fertilized with animal slurry. Hamscher G¹, Sczesny S¹, Höper H², and Nau H¹. ¹ Department of Food Toxicology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover. ² Geological Survey of Lower Saxony, Bremen, Germany. Very little is known about the occurence of veterinary drugs in the environment. Recently we demonstrated with LC-ESI-MS-MS procedures tetracycline (TC) and chlortetracycline (CTC) residues in farmland fertilized with slurry [Hamscher et al., Dtsche. tierärztl. Wschr.8, 332-334, 2000]. We now investigated the distribution of tetracyclines in a long-term soil monitoring area fertilized with pig slurry. Fertilization and slurry sampling took place in April, soil sampling was performed in May and in November after cultivation of maize on the field. We detected 4 mg/L TC and 0,1 mg/L CTC in the pig slurry and additionally 20 % of their 4-epimers. It could be shown in the samples of May, that tetracyclines were distributed evenly over the field and that the antibiotics were ploughed in a depth of 30 cm in average concentrations for TC of 19,8 ± 7,8 g/kg (0-10 cm), 34,6 ± 23,6 g/kg (10-20 cm) and 31,0 ± 12,0 g/kg (20-30 cm) , for CTC 3 g/kg for all segments. In a soil depth of 30 - 90 cm or in ground water no tetracyclines could be detected. In the samples of November the amounts decreased moderately to average values for TC of 31,0 ± 12,0 g/kg (0-10 cm), 32,1 ± 13,8 g/kg (10-20 cm), and 20,3 ± 7,0 g/kg (20-30 cm), the CTC amounts were still 3-4 g/kg for the three segments. We conclude that tetracyclines are strongly adsorbed to soil in significant concentrations and quite persistent in the environment.

Key words: tetracyclines, soil, tandem mass spectrometry, animal slurry