International pesticide use information system for exporting vegetables and fruit

Abstract

An online information system was developed to allow US growers to search pesticide application information for export of vegetables and fruits. By entering an export country, a crop name, pesticide type, and post harvest interval, a user can obtain a list of pesticides labeled for the crop, the pesticides suitable for use with export, and the associated pesticide application restriction (PAR) information for each pesticide in the recommended list. A relational database (Microsoft SQL Server 2000) was used to house the PAR data, pesticide labels, and pesticide maximum residue limit information (MRL). These data were obtained from governmental agencies and international organizations. The data were then entered into the system using an online data entry system developed using ColdFusion programming language. The database currently contains the registration information for over 1,100 pesticides, 20,000 MRL data entries, and 20,000 PAR entries. New data are updated frequently. The project web site is http://cipm.ncsu.edu/exportMRL.