Pesticides

Pesticides are designed to control or eliminate pests such as insects, rodents,

weeds, bacteria, and fungus. Although pesticides play a significant role in
increasing food production and eliminating diseases, exposure to pesticides can be
harmful to humans.

The ill-effects may follow from short- or long-term exposure and from low-
or high-level exposure through skin contact, inhalation, or ingestion. Some
pesticides are highly toxic, with a few drops causing extremely harmful effects;
although other pesticides are less toxic, too much exposure to them can also cause
harmful effects. Symptoms may appear within minutes or hours after an exposure
to a pesticide and range from relatively mild headaches to fatigue, skin rashes, eye
irritation, burns, paralysis, and even death.

Common kinds of pesticides:

1. Algicides - Control algae in swimming pools, lakes, canals, and water used
industrially or stored.\
2. Attractants - Attract pests (for example, lure an insect or rodent to a trap).
Pheromones are chemical sex attractants often used to confuse mating
behavior of insects.
3. Biocides - Kill harmful plant pathogens (microorganisms).
4. Disinfectants and sanitizers - Kill or inactivate disease producing
microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, etc.) on inanimate objects.
5. Fumigants - Produce gas or vapor intended to destroy insects, fungi,
bacteria, or rodents, used to disinfest interiors of buildings as well as soil
before planting.
6. Herbicides - Kill weeds and other plants that grow where they are not
wanted.
7. Insecticides - Kill insects and other “bugs”.
8. Miticides - Also called acaricides, kill mites that feed on plants and animals.
9. Nematicides - Kill nematodes (microscopic, wormlike organisms that feed
on plant roots).
 10. Repellents - Repel pests, including birds and insects (for example,
mosquitoes, fleas or ticks).

The term pesticide also includes related substances:

 Defoliants - Cause leaves or foliage to drop from a plant, usually to

facilitate harvest.
 Desiccants - Promote drying of living tissues unwanted plant tops or
insects.
 Insect growth regulators - Disrupt the action of insect hormones
controlling molting, maturity from pupal stage to adult, or other life
processes.
 Plant growth regulators – Substances (excluding fertilizers or other plant
nutrients) that alter the expected growth, flowering, or reproduction rate
of plants through hormonal rather than physical action.

Effects of Pesticides on Soil:

The capacity of the soil to filter, buffer, degrade, immobilize, and detoxify
pesticides is a function or quality of the soil. Soil quality also encompasses the
impacts that soil use and management can have on water and air quality, and on
human and animal health. The presence and bio-availability of pesticides in soil
can adversely impact human and animal health, and beneficial plants and soil
organisms. Pesticides can move off-site contaminating surface and groundwater
and possibly causing adverse impacts on aquatic ecosystems.

Pesticide formulations:

The formulation is the chemical and physical form in which the pesticide is
sold for use. The active ingredient (a.i.) is the chemical in the formulation that has
the specific effect on the target organism. The formulation improves the properties
of the pesticides for storage, handling, application, effectiveness, or safety.
Examples of formulated products are wettable powders and waterdispersible
granules. A single pesticide is often sold in several different formulations,
depending on use requirements and application needs.
Mode of action:

Mode of action refers to the mechanism by which the pesticide kills or

interacts with the target organism.

 Contact pesticides kill the target organism by weakening or

disrupting the cellular membranes; death can be very rapid.
 Systemic pesticides must be absorbed or ingested by the target
organism to disrupt its physiological or metabolic processes;
generally they are slow acting.

How effective the pesticides are at killing the target organisms (efficacy)
depends on the properties of the pesticide and the soil, formulation,
application technique, agricultural management, characteristics of the crop,
environmental or weather conditions, and the nature and behavior of the
target organism.

Pesticides in the environment

Pesticide stays in the treated area long enough to produce the desired effect
and then degrades into harmless materials. Three primary modes of degradation
occur in soils:

 Biological - breakdown by micro-organisms.

 Chemical - breakdown by chemical reactions, such as hydrolysis and redox
reactions.
 Photochemical - breakdown by ultraviolet or visible light.

The rate at which a chemical degrades is expressed as the half-life. The half-life
is the amount of time it takes for half of the pesticide to be converted into
something else, or its concentration is half of its initial level. The half-life of a
pesticide depends on soil type, its formulation, and environmental conditions
(e.g., temperature, moisture). Other processes that influence the fate of the
chemical include plant uptake, soil sorption, leaching, and volatilization.
Types of Pesticides:

Organophosphate Pesticides - These pesticides affect the nervous system by

disrupting the enzyme that regulates acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. Most
organophosphates are insecticides. They were developed during the early 19th
century, but their effects on insects, which are similar to their effects on
humans, were discovered in 1932. Some are very poisonous (they were used in
World War II as nerve agents). However, they usually are not persistent in the
environment.

Carbamate Pesticides affect the nervous system by disupting an enzyme that

regulates acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. The enzyme effects are usually
reversible. There are several subgroups within the carbamates.

Organochlorine Insecticides were commonly used in the past, but many have
been removed from the market due to their health and environmental effects
and their persistence (e.g. DDT and chlordane).

Pyrethroid Pesticides were developed as a synthetic version of the naturally

occurring pesticide pyrethrin, which is found in chrysanthemums. They have
been modified to increase their stability in the environment. Some synthetic
pyrethroids are toxic to the nervous system.

Pesticide degradation, or the breakdown of pesticides, is usually beneficial.

The reactions that destroy pesticides change most pesticide residues in the
environment to inactive, less toxic, and harmless compounds. However,
degradation is detrimental when a pesticide is destroyed before the target pest
has been controlled.

Three types of pesticide degradation are microbial, chemical, and

photodegradation.

Microbial degradation is the breakdown of pesticides by fungi, bacteria, and

other microorganisms that use pesticides as a food source. Most microbial
degradation of pesticides occurs in the soil. Soil conditions such as moisture,
temperature, aeration, pH, and the amount of organic matter affect the rate of
microbial degradation because of their direct influence on microbial growth and
activity.
 The frequency of pesticide applications can also influence microbial
degradation. Rapid microbial degradation is more likely when the same
pesticide is used repeatedly in a field. Repeated applications can actually
stimulate the buildup of organisms effective in degrading the chemical. As the
population of these organisms increases, degradation accelerates and the
amount of pesticide available to control the pest is reduced.

Chemical degradation is the breakdown of pesticides by processes that do

not involve living organisms. Temperature, moisture, pH, and adsorption, in
addition to the chemical and physical properties of the pesticide, determine
which chemical reactions take place and how quickly they occur. Because of
lack of light, heat, and oxygen in the water-saturated layers of the soil profile
below the surface, chemical breakdown is generally much slower than at the
surface. In northern states, the season influences groundwater temperatures
from 5 to 10 feet below the ground surface, varying from 39 degrees F to 41
degrees F during the coldest part of the winter to 59 degrees F to 61 degrees F
during the hottest part of the summer. Groundwater below 10 to 15 feet
maintains a constant temperature of 50 degrees F to 53 degrees F. These low
temperatures greatly reduce tile rate of chemical breakdown.

One of the most common pesticide degradation reactions is hydrolysis a

breakdown process where the pesticide reacts with water. Depending on the
pesticide, this may occur in both acid and alkaline conditions. Many
organophosphate and carbamate insecticides are particularly susceptible to
hydrolysis under alkaline conditions. Some are actually broken down within a
matter of hours when mixed with alkaline water.

Photodegradation is the breakdown of pesticides by light, particularly

sunlight. Photodegradation can destroy pesticides on foliage, on the soil surface,
and even in the air.

Factors that influence pesticide photodegradation include the intensity of the

sunlight, properties of the application site, the application method, and the
properties of the pesticide.
 Metolachlor [2-chloro-N-(2'-ethyl-6'-methyl phenyl)-N-(2-methoxy-1-
methylethyl)-acetamide] is an acetanilide herbicide. Commonly used as pre-
emergence application for the control of annual grasses and some broadleaved
weeds in a variety of crops, including maize, sorghum, cotton, sugarcane, sugar
beet, potato, peanuts, soybean, sunflower, safflower and some vegetables.
Metolachlor is relatively more persistent compared to other acetanilide
herbicides, alachlor and propachlor in the soil environment. Its degradation in
soil is a biological rather than a chemical process and it is considered to be a co
metabolic process.

DDT (dichloro-dipheynl-tricholoethane) was first synthesized 1873. But at

that time, it was just another molecule, with no notable qualities.

1,1,1-Trichloro-2,2-bis-(4'-chlorophenyl)ethane (DDT), the first of the

chlorinated organic insecticides, is a widely distributed and persistent
xenobiotic contaminant in the environment. DDT is not metabolized very
rapidly by animals; instead, it is deposited and stored in the fatty tissues. The
biological half-life of DDT is about eight years; that is, it takes about eight
years for an animal to metabolize half of the amount it assimilates. If ingestion
continues at a steady rate, DDT builds up within the animal over time. Despite
being banned in the United States, DDT continues to be widely used in many
developing nations. This page shows only its aerobic pathway.

The chemical structure of DDT, including aromatic and alicyclic moieties,

offers a variety of possibilities for biochemical attack. Several aerobic pathways
for DDT metabolism in different organisms were suggested. Compounds in
brackets were not identified but postulated based on other studies, such as those
of the Biphenyl Pathway.