Methods of assessing the effects of herbicides

Abstract

An examination of the literature reveals that many aspects of the activity of herbicides have been reviewed including chemistry, toxicology, herbicidal effects and efficiency, chemical and microbiological degradation, transportation, persistence in plants and soils, and others. These discussions have involved many disciplines, for example biochemistry, microbiology, earth sciences, and plant sciences such as botany, plant physiology, and agronomy. This dissertation reviews methods of assessing the effects of herbicides, and outlines the uses and limitations of various measurements, with particular emphasis on soil-applied herbicides. It consists of four sections. An introductory section discusses aspects of the history, classification, and use of herbicides. The second section outlines methods of analysing and detecting herbicides, and discusses the advantages and limitations of various techniques. In section three, properties of certain major groups of herbicides are reviewed in the context of quantitative and qualitative measurements of their effects. The concluding section suggests experimental and mathematical procedures designed to improve the reliability with which the effects of herbicides may be assessed. Common chemical names have been used for all herbicides discussed in this review, in accordance with nomenclature defined by Martin (1971). A full list is set out in Appendix 1.