Pesticide airborne residues related

Figure 1. The source and fate of airborne residues related to pesticide applications...

Popendorf, W.J., Spear, R.C., and Selvin, S. (1975) Collecting foliar pesticides residues related to potential airborne exposure to workers, Environ. Sci. Techno., 9 583-585. 

Some aspects of the sources, occurrence, and dispersion of airborne pesticide residues (6, 27) and methods for their sampling and analysis (28, 29, 30, 31) have been reviewed elsewhere. In this paper, the focus will be on sampling methodology, experimental design, and some results from recent field tests aimed at determining the entry and proximate fate of airborne residues in relation to specific agricultural treatments. 

From these experiments it may be concluded that sunlight is indeed the predominate factor in the airborne conversions of both trifluralin and parathion, but that oxidant enhances the reaction rate in both cases. Vapor-nhase photodecomposition may be a primary dissipation process for the significant fractions of trifluralin (47, 79) and parathion (5) known or suspected to be volatilized following application. It may also explain why surprisingly small residues of potentially photo-reactive pesticides such as trifluralin, parathion, and related chemicals are found in surveys of atmospheric levels of pesticides near heavy use areas (9, 1(3, 1J, 413. 

---