ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to point out major areas where the authors should be considering the impact of actual field conditions on inferences derived from laboratory data. Laboratory studies provide a basis for understanding the fate of agricultural chemicals in the field. For a given agricultural chemical, development of a sorption coefficient or Kf value is a common starting point to describe its behavior. R. J. Hance has indicated that desorption equilibrium may take longer to reach than adsorption equilibrium. This slower equilibrium may limit the amount of herbicide that is present in solution. Most pesticide degradation studies are conducted in the laboratory under constant and ideal moisture contents, and many have been conducted in slurries. Provided aeration is adequate, these studies will tend to overestimate pesticide degradation that could occur in the field because the studies generate a good microbe-pesticide contact.