Elemental and Isotopic Fingerprint of Argentinean Wheat. Matching Soil, Water and Crop Composition to Differentiate Provenance.

PODIO N; BARONI M.V.; BADINI R,; INGA, M; OSTERA HA; CAGNONI M; HOOGEWERFF J; WUNDERLIN D.A.

JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD CHEMISTRY

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2013 vol. 61 p. 3716 - 3773

0021-8561

The aim of this study was to investigate if elemental and isotopic signatures of Argentinean wheat can be used to develop a reliable fingerprint to assess its geographical provenance. For this pilot study we used wheat cultivated at three different regions (Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Entre Rios), together with matching soil and water. Elemental composition was determined by ICP-MS. ä13C and ä15N were measured by isotopic ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS), while 87Sr/86Sr ratio was determined using thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS). Wheat samples from three sampling sites were differentiated by the 7 combination of 11 key variables (K/Rb, Ca/Sr, Ba, 87Sr/86Sr, Co, Mo, Zn, Mn, Eu, ä13C and Na), demonstrating differences among the three studied regions. The application of Generalized Procrustes Analysis (GPA) showed 99.2 % consensus between cultivation soil, irrigation water and wheat samples, in addition to clear differences between studied areas. Furthermore, canonical correlation analysis (CCA) showed significant correlation between the elemental and isotopic profiles of wheat with those corresponding to both soil and water (r2 = 0.97, p < 0.001; and r2 43 = 0.96, p < 0.001, respectively). To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating the correspondence between soil, water, and wheat samples using different statistical methods, showing that wheat elemental and isotopic compositions are mainly related to soil and irrigation water characteristics of the site of growth.