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Published on: May 15, 2017
Environmental pesticide distribution in horticultural and floricultural periurban production units
Giselle A Querejeta1, Laura M Ramos, Andrea P Flores
1Instituto de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, JM Gutiérrez 1150, (B1613GSX) Los Polvorines, Prov. de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Abstract:
The environmental pesticide distribution on non-target systems (soil, drift and agricultural plastics) during the application step at small periurban production units, was studied in open field and greenhouses, for different crops (tomato, lettuce, broccoli, strawberry and flowers) using different pesticides (endosulfan, procymidone, chlorothalonil, chlorpyrifos and deltamethrin). In all cases, soil was the most exposed non-target system. For greenhouses, a general pesticide distribution was found of approximately 2/3 for crop, 1/4 for soil and 1/20 for plastic, of the total amount applied. In horticultural open fields, although the distribution was very dependent on the crop size and type, soil was also the most exposed non-target subsystem. Pesticide drift seems not to be significant in these production units, whilst pesticide accumulation on agricultural plastics reached up to 45% of the total applied, for polyethylene mulching in strawberry fields.
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