Marit Almvik

Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research | NIBIO · Pesticides and Natural Products Chemistry

In the Nordic countries, ice encasement of golf greens and agricultural grass fields under sunlight heat often leads to grass death due to oxygen depletion and accumulation of carbon dioxide and metabolites from anaerobic respiration under the ice layer. The phenomenon is termed 'isbrann' in Norwegian and it is a severe type of winter damage that m...

This study focuses on the occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), and pesticides in three small water bodies located in Norway. To assess the presence of these contaminants over an extended period, polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) were employed as sampling devices. Over the course of one year, water samp...

The mandatory analysis scope for pesticides in the EU coordinated monitoring program is limited to pesticides whose maximum allowable residue levels have been set. With new screening technology, we are able to detect many more unwanted compounds in food samples. The use of targeted multimethods complemented by high resolution accurate mass (HRMS)...

To ensure compliance with food safety regulations, monitoring programs and reliable analytical methods to detect relevant chemical pollutants in food and the environment are key instruments. Pesticides are an important part of pest management in agriculture to sustain and increase crop yields and control post-harvest decay, while pesticide residues...

Rapporten presenterer resultater fra overvåkingsprogram for plantetoksiner for prøver tatt ut på det norske markedet i 2022. Hensikten med overvåkingsprogrammet er hovedsakelig å overvåke nivået av plantetoksiner for å sikre at forbrukerne ikke utsettes for plantetoksiner som kan utgjøre en helsefare. Overvåkingen skal også bidra til å sikre at nær...

The high-resolution accurate mass Thermo Scientific QExactive instrument in combination with the UltiMate 3000 UHPLC and Thermo Accucore aQ separation column, has for us proven a very robust setup for the screening of 850 pesticides and degradation products with unknown and known retention times in soil, water and food of plant origin. The screenin...

Over recent decades, the Norwegian cereal industry has had major practical and financial challenges associated with the occurrence of Fusarium head blight (FHB) pathogens and their associated mycotoxins in cereal grains. Deoxynivalenol (DON) is one of the most common Fusarium-mycotoxins in Norwegian oats, however T-2 toxin (T2) and HT-2 toxin (HT2)...

Helminth parasitic infections are common in small ruminants in Norway; infection is usually treated with anthelmintic drugs, but anthelmintic resistance is an increasing problem. It is necessary to identify strategies to reduce the use of anthelmintic drugs and mitigate the impact of anthelmintic resistance. Condensed tannin (CT)-rich forages have...

Difenoconazole is a widely used triazole fungicide that has been frequently detected in the environment, but comprehensive study about its environmental fate and toxicity of potential transformation products (TPs) is still lacking. Here, laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the degradation kinetics, pathways, and toxicity of transfo...

The report is in Norwegian. An English summary is provided. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority, in cooperation with NIBIO, investigated the levels of certain natural plant toxins to obtain more data and increase the knowledge in specific foods. The plant toxins investigated were tropane alkaloids in cereal-based food and herbal infusions, and pyrr...

Many greenkeepers and authorities are concerned about the environmental risks resulting from pesticide use on golf courses. We studied leaching and surface runoff of fungicides and metabolites for two winter seasons after fall application of boscalid, pyraclostrobin, prothioconazole, trifloxystrobin, and fludioxonil in field lysimeters at NIBIO Lan...

Cereal grain contaminated by Fusarium mycotoxins is undesirable in food and feed because of the harmful health effects of the mycotoxins in humans and animals. Reduction of mycotoxin content in grain by cleaning and size sorting has mainly been studied in wheat. We investigated whether the removal of small kernels by size sorting could be a method...

In response to various stimuli, plants acquire resistance against pests and/or pathogens. Such acquired or induced resistance allows plants to rapidly adapt to their environment. Spraying the bark of mature Norway spruce (Picea abies) trees with the phytohormone methyl jasmonate (MeJA) enhances resistance to tree‐killing bark beetles and their asso...

Our presentation on how we used Compound Discoverer (ver. 2.1) as a tool for detecting defense compounds in fungal infected Spruce wood, held at the "8th International Proteome Discoverer User's Meeting and 4th Compound Discoverer User's Meeting" (December 2019), can be downloaded from here!

The report is in Norwegian. An English summary is provided. Several weeds produce natural toxic substances (plant toxins) as a protection strategy against pests such as insects and herbivores. If the crops are contaminated by these weeds during the harvest, plant toxins may end up in the food chain. To get an indication on the levels of tropane...

In this report the following topic of pesticides and fate in Norway has been outlined covering: 1. Factors influencing degradation of pesticides. 2. Description and update of datasets on soil and climate in agricultural areas. 3. Normalization of field degradation data as input for modelling fate. 4. Use of degradation data from Norway in model sce...

Core Ideas Significantly more pesticides leached from frozen than from unfrozen soil columns. Rapid breakthrough of pesticides indicated preferential flow in frozen soil. A strong negative correlation between Kf and leaching was observed. The effect of sorption properties is weaker in the presence of macropore flow. Macropore flow may be less impor...

Plantetoksiner i vegetabilsk mat kan skyldes toksiner produsert av en matplante og/eller forurensning med plantetoksiner fra ugress. Enkelte ugress produserer svært toksiske naturstoffer. Giftig ugress som vokser i eller ved åkeren og som høstes inn sammen med matplantene. kan føre til at giftige stoffer havner i maten vår. Her gis en liten oppsumm...

Vi har tatt i bruk nye metoder innen plantemetabolomikk for å påvise og identifisere forsvarsstoff i gran og presenterer her noen resultater fra dette arbeidet. Hvert fjerde tre i skogen er angrepet av råtesopp. Rotråtesopp angriper treet gjennom rota og spiser opp kjerneveden på sin vei oppover i stammen. Den delen av trestokken som er angrepet av...

Limited knowledge and experimental data exist on pesticide leaching through partially frozen soil. The objective of this study was to better understand the complex processes of freezing and thawing and the effects these processes have on water flow and pesticide transport through soil. To achieve this we conducted a soil column irrigation experimen...

A leaching experiment with undisturbed soil columns from two different agricultural soils (silt and loam) was performed to study water flow and pesticide transport in frozen soils under cold climate conditions. The objective was to see whether the transport of water and pesticides in frozen soil was significantly different from transport in unfroze...

There is a great focus on the use of pesticides in general but also more specifically on the contamination of groundwater and surface water. Local climatic conditions can influence the fate and behaviour of pesticides to great extent. Not many studies have investigated experimentally in the laboratory the effect of freezing and thawing and the pref...

Phosphorus (P) is an important element for crop productivity and is widely applied in fertilizers. Most P fertilizers applied to land are sorbed onto soil particles, so research on improving plant uptake of less easily available P is important. In the current study, we investigated the responses in root morphology and root-exuded organic acids to l...

Streptomyces scabies causes yield losses in potato by inducing common scab (CS) symptoms on tubers. Little information is available on global gene expression responses in CS‐causing streptomycetes upon interaction with host plants. In this study, expression of 8746 genes was analysed in the type strain of S. scabies (ATCC49173) using a custom‐desig...

Rhodiola rosea is a well-known herbal medicinal plant. It is growing wild in large parts of Norway and many other countries in the world. R. rosea has been used by the Sami people for centuries. Some of the most important metabolites are believed to be salidroside, cinnamyl alcohol, glycosides (rosine, rosavine, rosarine), flavonoids (rhodionin, rh...

Organochlorine pollutants in the major fish species (pike Esox lucius, perch Perca fluviatilis, and roach Rutilus rutilus) of Lake Arungen, Norway, were investigated after an extensive removal of large pike in 2004. The organochlorine pollutants detected in fish liver samples in 2005 were dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDTs), polychlorinated biph...

Take-all patch (Gaeumannomyces graminis [Sacc.] Arx & Oliver var. avenae [Turner] Dennis) and grey and pink snow molds (Microdochium nivale [Fr.] Samuels and Hallett) and (Typhula spp.), are common diseases on sand-based golf greens. Our objectives were (1) to study potential suppression of these diseases on new greens by inclusion of 20 % (v/v) ga...

This study was conducted to evaluate the potential area of IVM and IPVM by compiling relevant information and using factors to identify target areas in GIS. Based on the factor of malaria infection/ transmission area, these areas were located in the province closed to the neighbors’ border i.e. Myanmar, Cambodia and Malaysia. Twelve provinces were...

Little research has been done on pesticide dissipation under cold climates, and there is a need to focus on the influence of climate on pesticide degradation in soil and the risk of leaching to surface and ground waters. The objective of the work reported here was to increase the knowledge on the fate and risk of leaching of the mobile herbicide me...

Degradation and dissipation studies in laboratory and field were performed with isoproturon (IPU) to produce data for modelling the fate of an autumn applied pesticide in a Gleyic Podzoluvisol in Norway. Transformation rate studies of IPU in the laboratory during 8 weeks displayed a DT 50 of 13 days in topsoil (0-20 cm) and 21 days in subsoil (20-4...