Our Pocket Lab has successfully detected pesticides and fertilizers residuals in green pea (proof of concept).

Public concern about pesticides has been sharply increasing – pesticides may be found everywhere – flowing from affected soil into the drinking water (7%). Today, few products can be assessed for pesticide residuals because testing is expensive, and it takes days to get results. Consequently, it is difficult for farmers to optimize pesticide use. Our Pocket Lab has the potential to replace time-consuming and expensive laboratory testing with unlimited, real-time, portable, and accurate chemistry sensing.

We took 50 measurements of green pea samples using Pocket Lab: (1) fertilizer added, (2) pesticides added (3) organic. Plants were grown in the same conditions (soil, irrigation, weather). The discriminant analysis demonstrated distinct differences between the green pea grown with pesticide, fertilizer use, or organic production.