Radiometric approaches with carbon-14-labeled molecules for determining herbicide fate in plant systems

Weeds cause economic losses in cropping systems, leading to the use of 1.7 million tons of herbicides worldwide for weed control annually. Once in the environment, herbicides can reach non-target organisms, causing negative impacts on the ecosystem. Herbicide retention, transport, and degradation processes determine their environmental fate and are essential to assure the safety of these molecules. Radiometric strategies using carbon-14 herbicides (¹⁴C) are suitable approaches for determining herbicide absorption, translocation, degradation, retention, and transport in soil, plants, and water. In this work, we demonstrate how ¹⁴C-herbicides can be used from different perspectives. Our work focused on herbicide-plant-environment interactions when the herbicide is applied (a) through the leaf, (b) in the soil, and (c) in the water. We also quantified the mass balance in each experiment. ¹⁴C-mesotrione foliar absorption increased with oil and adjuvant addition (5–6 % to 25–46 %), and translocation increased only with adjuvant. More than 80 % of ¹⁴C-quinclorac and ¹⁴C-indaziflam remained in the soil and cover crops species absorbed less than 20 % of the total herbicides applied. In water systems, Salvinia spp. plants removed 10–18 % of atrazine from the water. Atrazine metabolism was not influenced by the presence of the plants. The radiometric strategies used were able to quantify the fate of the herbicide in different plant systems and the mass balance varied from 70 % to 130 %. Importantly, we highlight a critical and practical view of tracking herbicides in different matrices. This technique can aid scientists to explore other pesticides as environmental contaminants.