FLAVOR AND BENZENE HEXACHLORIDE CONTENT OF PEANUTS 21 



DISCUSSION 



It is recognized that such factors as soil type, climatic conditions 

 during the growing and curing of peanuts, and methods and duration 

 of curing may affect the flavor of peanuts. However, it was either 

 impossible or not feasible to control these variables in relation to the 

 peanut samples collected from commercial growers' fields in 1950 and 

 1951. It is possible, therefore, that the effects of such variables on 

 peanut quality may have obscured effects of soil residues of BHC on 

 the flavor of these peanuts. In this connection, however, it may be 

 noted that the BHC content of peanuts determined chemically gener- 

 ally paralleled the results of the palat ability tests. Among those 

 samples of peanuts collected in 1950 and 1951 from commercial fields 

 and analyzed chemically, the BHC content was low and with few 

 exceptions, for the most part hi the 1951 samples, was less than the 

 0.2-p. p. m. level of reliability of the analytical method when applied 

 to peanuts. Low or nonsignificant concentrations of BHC in peanuts 

 were generally paralleled by similarly low or nonsignificant concentra- 

 tions of the insecticide in soils. In these studies, therefore, ordinary 

 application to cotton of BHC as 3-5-40 dust did not result in sig- 

 nificant accumulations of BHC in soils on which the cotton was 

 grown or in peanuts which followed the cotton, nor was flavor of the 

 peanuts correlated with prior exposure to BHC of the soils in which 

 they were grown. 



In contrast to the above findings, peanuts grown in 1951 at Hol- 

 land, Va., in soils used the previous year for cotton that was treated 

 with heavy dosages of BHC, did develop flavors characteristic of the 

 insecticide and also accumulated determinable quantities of BHC. 

 BHC was also recovered from soil samples from the treated plots in 

 quantities ranging from 0.48 to 1.39 p. p. m. These results were 

 obtained when peanuts followed cotton on experimental plots that 

 received 3.8 to 5.1 pounds of gamma per acre derived from technical 

 BHC containing 13 percent of gamma. Such treatments are 2 to 3 

 times the recommended rate of application. In practice, however, 

 application rates may vary considerably and in instances of exces- 

 sive use or of unusual difficulty in obtaining pest control, farmers 

 may apply quantities of technical BHC dust to cotton in a single 

 season that provide 4 to 5 pounds of gamma per acre, or even more. 

 Thus, while the experimental dosages that were applied in 1950 on 

 the Holland, Va., cotton plots were much higher than recommended, 

 such dosages may occur in practice. Also, as Boswell (2) has noted, 

 this insecticide does show some tendency to persist and to accumulate 

 in soils following exposure to repeated or heavj' dosages. It is pos- 

 sible, therefore, that under some conditions normal applications of 

 BHC insecticides to cotton for 2 or more } T ears could provide for 

 sufficient accumulation of the insecticide in soils to adversely affect 

 the flavor of peanuts or other food plants produced later in these soils. 



While the 1950 and 1951 studies point to the dosage of insecticide 

 used on cotton as the major factor in determining accumulation and 

 carryover in soil of sufficient quantities of BHC to result in off-flavors 

 and chemically determinable quantities of the insecticide in peanuts 

 that followed the cotton, they also suggest that other factors may 

 have been involved. One of the samples (table 1) collected from a 

 commercial field in 1950 followed cotton reportedly treated with 



