Soil amendment: a technique for soil remediation of lactofen.

Lactofen, a member of the diphenyl ether chemical family, shows great potential for the control of broadleaf weeds associated with leguminous crops. It presents a high degree of selectivity when applied post-emergence to soybean and peanut crops. This paper presents the persistence of lactofen under a soybean crop under various conditions, including without remediation techniques, under soil solarization with polyethene sheets, and soil solarization followed by straw amendment. The results indicate that dissipation is faster when using the soil solarization technique (set II) compared to no treatment (set I) and is further enhanced by tstraw amendment, where almost 90% dissipation was recorded (set III). The dissipation followed first-order kinetics with a half-life that varied from 30 to 10 days. The half-life of lactofen was 15 days in treatments of soil solarization and straw amendments alone, indicating that both techniques have to be used in combination to achieve successful remediation of soil. Use of biodegradable polythene/substitute material will make this process a popular technique and may also improve its commercial viability.