RESEARCH – PESTICIDES – BMPs
organic row cropsBest Management Practices (BMPs) are effective, practical, structural or nonstructural methods which prevent or reduce the movement of sediment, nutrients, pesticides, and other pollutants from the land to surface or ground water, or which otherwise protect water quality from potential adverse effects of agricultural activities. These practices are developed to achieve a balance between water quality protection and agricultural production within natural and economic limitations.  This website highlights some of the efforts to develop and improve BMPs for pesticides within the Land Grant University System, often with CSREES funding.

Grass Filter Strips
Using grass filter strips can significantly reduce the amount of herbicide runoff associated with crops near adjacent lakes, rivers or streams.

grassed stream buffersAn ongoing project conducted at Texas A&M University has shown as much as a 50 percent reduction in atrazine and metolachlor after passing through a grass filter strip. 

University of Nebraska researchers found that atrazine loading to the stream was reduced by 57% in a watershed with grassed buffers. 

Researchers at Iowa State University studied the leaching and degradation of atrazine within grassed buffers.  They concluded that some leaching of atrazine is likely in grass buffers, but the buffer soils retain atrazine to a greater extent than row-cropped soil and suggest that the choice and management of plant species can influence the retention of atrazine in riparian buffers. 

Remediation efforts

A project at Texas A&M University examined new polymeric soil amendments that may help prevent contamination of water resources by reducing runoff and leaching of agricultural chemicals.  The surfactant was attached to clay particles, and its ability to sequester atrazine was most efficient at 10% loading of the surfactant on the clay.national research initiative

University of California researchers discovered a novel reaction, in which chloroacetanilide herbicides are dechlorinated and detoxified by thiosulfate salts. Addition of ammonium- or sodium thiosulfate to herbicide-contaminated sand columns reduced herbicide leaching by up to 99%. national research initiative

Organic Farming

A review of a 22-year farming trial study at Cornell University concluded that organic farming produces the same yields of corn and soybeans as does conventional farming, but uses 30 percent less energy, less water and no pesticides.