ABSTRACT
Everyone working with agricultural chemicals wants to know the toxicity of the phytocide, both to himself and to other organisms. This chapter will explore herbicide toxicity and ways to minimize exposure to animals and the environment when managing woody plants. Toxicity to the test organism is given as the LD50 or lethal dose, expressed as milligrams (mg) of toxicant per kilogram (kg) of body weight (mg/kg), the dose that kills 50% of the test animals, usually laboratory rats. For mammalian toxicity it can be expressed as acute oral toxicity, and toxicity is determined (short-term) at the end of 24 hr (Ware, 1989).
