Pesticides in Agriculture
Synthetic pesticides are ubiquitous in today's agriculture practice. Their ability to increase crop yield provides farmers with efficient means of food production, and allows for production in otherwise unfavorable conditions. Despite these benefits, unintended toxic consequences for non-target organisms and other forms of ecological stress is widely observed. As technological improvements allow us to produce pesticides with greater specificity, and as target organisms develop resistance, more and more new pesticides are developed. This "pipeline" presents a serious risk to the environment, and with each introduced chemical, dissipation studies are a prerequisite to registration. These studies, though helpful, are often incomplete, not in the public domain, and are usually performed by the pesticide developer. Our role is to conduct peer-reviewed pesticide degradation experiments, performed on the specific ecological system of intended use, under the intended condition of use. Specifically, our research is on the transport, tansformation and fate of pesticides which interest the California rice industry.
For more information on our projects, both past and present, click on the webpage of each individual.
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and 30+ years worth of others!