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Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans

BACKGROUND: Selection of pesticides with small ecological footprints is a key factor in developing sustainable agricultural systems. Policy guiding the selection of pesticides often emphasizes natural products and organic-certified pesticides to increase sustainability, because of the prevailing pub...

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Autores principales: Bahlai, Christine A., Xue, Yingen, McCreary, Cara M., Schaafsma, Arthur W., Hallett, Rebecca H.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2889831/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20582315
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011250
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author Bahlai, Christine A.
Xue, Yingen
McCreary, Cara M.
Schaafsma, Arthur W.
Hallett, Rebecca H.
author_facet Bahlai, Christine A.
Xue, Yingen
McCreary, Cara M.
Schaafsma, Arthur W.
Hallett, Rebecca H.
author_sort Bahlai, Christine A.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Selection of pesticides with small ecological footprints is a key factor in developing sustainable agricultural systems. Policy guiding the selection of pesticides often emphasizes natural products and organic-certified pesticides to increase sustainability, because of the prevailing public opinion that natural products are uniformly safer, and thus more environmentally friendly, than synthetic chemicals. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We report the results of a study examining the environmental impact of several new synthetic and certified organic insecticides under consideration as reduced-risk insecticides for soybean aphid (Aphis glycines) control, using established and novel methodologies to directly quantify pesticide impact in terms of biocontrol services. We found that in addition to reduced efficacy against aphids compared to novel synthetic insecticides, organic approved insecticides had a similar or even greater negative impact on several natural enemy species in lab studies, were more detrimental to biological control organisms in field experiments, and had higher Environmental Impact Quotients at field use rates. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data bring into caution the widely held assumption that organic pesticides are more environmentally benign than synthetic ones. All pesticides must be evaluated using an empirically-based risk assessment, because generalizations based on chemical origin do not hold true in all cases.
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spelling pubmed-28898312010-06-25 Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans Bahlai, Christine A. Xue, Yingen McCreary, Cara M. Schaafsma, Arthur W. Hallett, Rebecca H. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Selection of pesticides with small ecological footprints is a key factor in developing sustainable agricultural systems. Policy guiding the selection of pesticides often emphasizes natural products and organic-certified pesticides to increase sustainability, because of the prevailing public opinion that natural products are uniformly safer, and thus more environmentally friendly, than synthetic chemicals. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We report the results of a study examining the environmental impact of several new synthetic and certified organic insecticides under consideration as reduced-risk insecticides for soybean aphid (Aphis glycines) control, using established and novel methodologies to directly quantify pesticide impact in terms of biocontrol services. We found that in addition to reduced efficacy against aphids compared to novel synthetic insecticides, organic approved insecticides had a similar or even greater negative impact on several natural enemy species in lab studies, were more detrimental to biological control organisms in field experiments, and had higher Environmental Impact Quotients at field use rates. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data bring into caution the widely held assumption that organic pesticides are more environmentally benign than synthetic ones. All pesticides must be evaluated using an empirically-based risk assessment, because generalizations based on chemical origin do not hold true in all cases. Public Library of Science 2010-06-22 /pmc/articles/PMC2889831/ /pubmed/20582315 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011250 Text en Bahlai et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bahlai, Christine A.
Xue, Yingen
McCreary, Cara M.
Schaafsma, Arthur W.
Hallett, Rebecca H.
Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans
title Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans
title_full Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans
title_fullStr Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans
title_full_unstemmed Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans
title_short Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans
title_sort choosing organic pesticides over synthetic pesticides may not effectively mitigate environmental risk in soybeans
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2889831/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20582315
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011250
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