ABSTRACT
Industrialized agriculture often requires the use of numerous chemical compounds such as herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, nematicides, and growth regulators for various purposes during the plants course of growth and postharvest period in storage. In some cases plant protection chemicals may not affect the vitamin content of fruits at the time of their harvest but may affect the rate of vitamin loss after fruits have been harvested, i.e., during the postharvest periods. Soil properties and the kind of plant protection chemicals may strongly interact for the effect on plant vitamins long after the plants have been harvested. For example, carrots grown on clay soil contaminated with dieldrin lost their carotene at a slower rate during storage. Numerous reports indicates that many fungicides and insecticides usually applied directly to the plants may alter the concentration of various vitamins, the magnitude and direction of which depend on the environmental conditions, kind of plant, type of compound, and vitamin.
