Free Research Paper On What Is The Purpose Of The Pesticide?

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Atrazine belongs to the triazine class and is an herbicide. The pesticide is mostly used to protect crops from broadleaf weeds. It is usually employed to protect crops like maize and sugarcane. It is also used on golf courses and residential lawns to protect the greenery against pests. It is also widely known to increase the production of corn by nearly three to four percent.

How does the pesticide affect food crops in both negative and positive ways?

In a study conducted by collecting data from about two hundred and thirty-six universities, it was concluded that by applying Atrazine in crops, nearly 5.6 more bushels of maize were produced. On sorghum, the increase is twenty percent per acre. However, this growth of bushes usually is extremely unnatural and makes the plant lose some of its nutritional qualities as well.

What type of environmental impact does this pesticide have?

Atrazine can enter water sources and slowly dissolve into the water bodies. Resultantly, it can have many adverse effects on amphibians who feed on even low concentrations of atrazine. It has been proven that it can make male northern leopard frogs lose their masculinity and reproductive abilities. It also causes male tadpoles to turn into hermaphrodites. It also proved that many tadpoles can form deformed hearts, bad digestive systems and failed kidneys.

What is a more sustainable method that can be used rather than pesticides?

One of the cheapest methods includes the spraying of hot water that costs about the same as pesticides do. Other than that, the push-pull strategy can be applied to where the behavior of insects is manipulated. They are repelled away from crops and pulled towards weeds and other such damaging plants.

References

Wolfgang Krämer, Ulrich Schirmer, (2007). Modern Crop Protection Compounds. 1st ed. : Wiley.