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ARS Home » Northeast Area » University Park, Pennsylvania » Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #375245
Research Project: Sustainable Intensification of Crop and Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems at Multiple Scales

Location: Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research

Title: Pesticide application rates and their toxicological impacts: why do they vary so widely across the U.S.

Author
item TAO, MENGYA - University Of California
item Adler, Paul
item LARSEN, ASHLEY - University Of California
item SUH, SANGWON - University Of California

Submitted to: Environmental Research Letters
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/30/2020
Publication Date: 12/10/2020
Citation: Tao, M., Adler, P.R., Larsen, A.E., Suh, S. 2020. Pesticide application rates and their toxicological impacts: why do they vary so widely across the U.S. Environmental Research Letters. 15:1-12. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abc650.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abc650

Interpretive Summary: To understand the human health and environmental effects of pesticide use, large amounts of highly detailed data are needed across the region where the crops are grown. Researcher’s from USDA-ARS and UC Santa Barbara studied trends in pesticide use in corn production across the United States. We found that climate variables, such as temperature, precipitation and drought, can affect toxic impact intensities of pesticides due to its influence on maize yield and pesticide use and could indicate increased pesticide use with a changing climate.

Technical Abstract: There is a widespread concern regarding the human and ecological health impacts of pesticide use, however, nation-wide toxicity impacts of pesticide use in the U.S. could not have been evaluated at a fine spatial resolution due mainly to the data limitation. Here, we present a new dataset at an unprecedented spatial resolution based on farm-level pesticide use data for maize production in the U.S. We show that toxic impact intensities of maize measured by four indicators vary by five to seven orders of magnitude across 891 maize-producing counties. We analyze the underlying drivers of the wide variability, and the results show that, among others, the variation in growing degree days (GDD) plays a significant role in explaining the variabilities in the toxic impact intensities. Our results suggest that climate change may adversely affect toxic impact intensities of pesticide use for maize.