Samples field soil dissipation studies

The four main phases involved in a field soil dissipation study are (I) planning and design phase, (II) field-conduct phase, (III) sample processing/analysis phase, and (IV) data handling/reporting phase. Each phase is vitally linked to the next and each is critical to study success. Results from an otherwise perfectly executed study may be made useless by uneven test substance application or improper sampling, sample handling, and/or analytical techniques. Each of these phases is discussed below. 

Depending on the apphcation, one or more source of control matrix may be available for selectivity screening. For instance, when testing for herbicides in a soil dissipation study the control matrix may come from the actual field where the study is to take place prior to application of the herbicide or from an adjacent control plot For bioanalytical analysis several lots of control matrix may be screened independently and as a pool (Section 10.4.1c), and additional selectivity data may be obtained from actual subjects prior to dosing (pre-dose samples). When a representative control matrix is not available or if additional confidence is required for analyte identification additional measures such as the inclusion of multiple... 

As more sensitive analytical methods for pesticides are developed, greater care must be taken to avoid sample contamination and misidentification of residues. For example, in pesticide leaching or field dissipation studies, small amounts of surface soil coming in contact with soil core or soil pore water samples taken from further below the ground surface can sometimes lead to wildly inaccurate analytical results. This is probably the cause of isolated, high-level detections of pesticides in the lower part of the vadose zone or in groundwater in samples taken soon after application when other data (weather, soil permeability determinations and other pesticide or tracer analytical results) imply that such results are highly improbable. 

DP-6 over 3000 soil samples collected from several terrestrial field dissipation studies. The sample procedural recoveries using this method, conducted concurrently with the treated samples during soil residue analysis, are summarized in Table 5. This method was proven to be short, rugged, sensitive, and suitable for measuring residues in soil and sediment at levels down to 0.01 mg kg . The reproducibility of the methods also indicated acceptable method performance and, as a result, thousands of samples were analyzed using this methodology. 

The need for additional samples to compensate for soil heterogeneity must be reconciled with labor, storage, transportation, analytical, and other constraints that add significantly to study costs. Satisfactory results have been obtained from numerous field studies using three or four treated replications with 5-10 soil cores collected from each replication per sampling period. These replication/repetition numbers strike a reasonable balance between the need for samples sufficient in number to characterize agrochemical dissipation versus financial and logistical constraints associated with sample collection and analysis. 

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