Evaluation of Herbicide Persistence in Soil*

Summary. The persistence of ten herbicides in soil was tested in the glasshouse over a 5–month period, using an oat bioassay. Simazine and diuron were highly persistent, atrazine persistent, fluometuron, trifluralin, bromacil and noruron moderately persistent, and pyrazon, prometryne and ametryne of short persistence. Six of these herbicides were also included in a field experiment consisting of logarithmically sprayed strips on which oats were sown at ten intervals of 1 month; changes of herbicidal activity with time were evaluated by measuring the length of the strip showing herbicidal injury. Results corroborate those of the glasshouse experiments except for trifluralin which was more persistent in the field. Disappearance curves were generally sigmoidal. The more persistent compounds showed a long period of slow disappearance followed by rapid disappearance.