Water Test in Citrus

Hello All,

I have a question for all you who are in the citrus business.

When in comes to water testing in the groves how often do you do it? we do a monthly test of surface water for Generic E.coli and an annual test for our wells. Here comes the question, we just went through our Global GAP audit and they required us to do a chemical and physical water test as well. Obviously this is more costly and in our risk assessment we have that we will do them during production time. The problem is that we're having problems deciding when exactly is production time. From planting to harvesting.

Thanks,

Good day,

We have clients in the citrus industry and like you they test surface water monthly, but they test well water every quarter. All of them consider "production" to be from first day of harvest to last day of packouts.

Marya,

I see you are in the US.  Have you checked the new FSMA Produce Rule?  There is a large part of this rule that outlines the specifics of the water testing requirements.  They have been revamped greatly and likely outpace anything that is required for a Global GAP, GFSI, or customer requirement.

Ryan

Hello All,

 

I have a question for all you who are in the citrus business.

 

When in comes to water testing in the groves how often do you do it? we do a monthly test of surface water for Generic E.coli and an annual test for our wells. Here comes the question, we just went through our Global GAP audit and they required us to do a chemical and physical water test as well. Obviously this is more costly and in our risk assessment we have that we will do them during production time. The problem is that we're having problems deciding when exactly is production time. From planting to harvesting.

 

Thanks,

Marya,

 

I see you are in the US.  Have you checked the new FSMA Produce Rule?  There is a large part of this rule that outlines the specifics of the water testing requirements.  They have been revamped greatly and likely outpace anything that is required for a Global GAP, GFSI, or customer requirement.

Ryan

Hello Ryan,

I have gone to their training's and yes they do have new takes on water sampling. The problem is that we still have to follow our third party audits criteria. FSMA can just required lets say 4 water samples per year but if our audits require them monthly we still have to do them monthly no matter what FSMA says. I talked to one of the trainers and ask her if the Third party audit companies would review their criteria against FSMA and they said there was talk about it but there wasn't much hope that they would do much changing if any. So for now FSMA is not doing much for us when it comes to that. 

Hello Ryan,

 

I have gone to their training's and yes they do have new takes on water sampling. The problem is that we still have to follow our third party audits criteria. FSMA can just required lets say 4 water samples per year but if our audits require them monthly we still have to do them monthly no matter what FSMA says. I talked to one of the trainers and ask her if the Third party audit companies would review their criteria against FSMA and they said there was talk about it but there wasn't much hope that they would do much changing if any. So for now FSMA is not doing much for us when it comes to that. 

Gotcha...I need to go back and read the final rule.  I recall when it was first drafted how the water sampling was considered a bit "over the top" by the produce industry.  Must have scaled it back quite a bit for the final rule.

Thanks!

Gotcha...I need to go back and read the final rule.  I recall when it was first drafted how the water sampling was considered a bit "over the top" by the produce industry.  Must have scaled it back quite a bit for the final rule.

 

Thanks!

Yes, it will be really nice if auditing companies would review their criteria (at least when it comes to water testing) and follow FSMA's ruling. FSMA requires 4 or more tests during a growing season or in a time frame of a year and then one yest every year after of ground water. For surface water it requires 20 or more samples over a period of 2-4 years and 5 samples every year after. I would be time and money saving if we could do this given the fact that we do it monthly. But then again if they don't change we have to keep doing what we're doing in order to remain certified and keep our costumers.