Present status and scope of further work in India on degradation of pesticides applied to crops

Abstract

On degradation of pesticides in plants and soil under semi-tropical and tropical conditions. most of the studies have been carried Out on insecticides. neglecting fungicides. herbicides and nematicides. The researches conducted safar deal mainly with persistence of the patent compound recovered from the plants. No information has been generated on metabolites, conjugates and bound residues formed during the post-application period. These conjugates and bound residues need to be characterized and their bio-availability has to be evaluated. Monitoring of pesticide residues has widespread contamination of environment with them. particularly with residues of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) and 1, 1. I-trichloro·2,2-bis (p-chlorophenyl)-ethane (DDT). Micro-organisms in nature are able to degrade a large quantity of many of these compounds. Methods have to be developed to decontaminate the enviromnent from pesticide residues. The pesticidal-degradation character of several microbes has been located on small fragment of extrachromosomal deoxyribonucleic acid (the plasmid). Though some bacterial strains, viz: Flavobacterium sp ATCC 27551 and Pseudomonas sp. capable of degrading toxic pesticides have been isolated, they need to be tested in field.