Abstract
Several countries included the assessment of environmental drift contamination risk for the registration of pesticides. This practice is not yet totality effective in Brazil; however, due to the large number of pesticides in use, it is important to identify the real contamination risk during pesticide spraying. Therefore, this study determined the indices of environmental risks for exposure to drift from terrestrial applications of fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides that are used in soybean crops under Brazilian climate conditions and established buffer zones for the application of these products. Based on the three prediction drift models for soybeans in Brazil, risk indices were computed for aquatic organisms and terrestrial organisms according to the modelling procedures proposed by the POCER (Pesticide Occupation and Environmental Risk) and HAIR (Harmonized Environmental Indicators for Pesticide Risk) methodologies. In general, aquatic organisms are the most sensitive to drift contamination, being chlorothalonil, trifluralin and chlorpyrifos the ones that presented the higher risk indexes. No risk was found for earthworms; in contrast, the insecticides chlorpyrifos, spinosad and thiamethoxam presented risks to bees regardless of the nozzle (droplet size) used for the determination of the drift curve, resulting in the demand for different buffer zones.
Highlights
Phytosanitary products play an important role in agriculture due to the growing need for high yields and the intensive production of food in a sustainable way
The fungicide carbendazim and the herbicide S-metolachlor presented a risk to aquatic organisms only if sprayed using fine droplets (XR tip) and require a buffer zone at least 3 m away from the application area (Table VII)
The fungicides chlorothalonil, pyraclostrobin and trifloxystrobin, the herbicide trifluralin and the insecticides lambda-cyhalothrin, lufenuron and methomyl presented environmental risk when applied at any of the three droplet sizes studied: fine, medium and coarse (XR 11002, TT 11002 and AIXR 11002, respectively); increasing the drop pattern size reduced the risk index and decreased the distance from the buffer zone required for all these active ingredients (Table VII) with the 2e0xception of lambda-cyhalothrin because of the inclination of the curves at distances close to 50 m
Summary
Phytosanitary products play an important role in agriculture due to the growing need for high yields and the intensive production of food in a sustainable way. In Europe, guidelines (European Commission 2002) force applicators of phytosanitary products (farmers) to have greater control of their applications, especially in terms of drifting. One of the ways to better address the drift problem is through the use of drift prediction models (Lebeau et al 2011), or drift curves (functions). These models express the quantity of drift deposited in the soil (percentage of application per hectare) as a function of the distance between an application area and
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