Influence of soil pH and contents of organic carbon and clay on the volatilization of [14C]fenpropimorph after application to bare soil

The behaviour of the morpholine fungicide fenpropimorph applied to soil was investigated in a laboratory chamber. The volatility and metabolism of a 14C-labelled fenpropimorph formulation (Corbel®) was studied after application to three soils (sandy loam, loamy clay and loamy sand), simulating a four-day weather scenario in the volatilization chamber. Additional experiments were conducted under standard climatic conditions over a period of 24 h using sandy soils with different pH values. The results of the first experiments showed that most of the radioactivity applied remained in the soils as unchanged fenpropimorph four days after application. In the experiments with the sandy loam and loamy clay, less than 5% of the applied radioactivity was removed by volatilization whereas 11·4% volatilized from the surface of the loamy sand. The comparatively higher volatilization of the fungicide from the loamy sand was confirmed by the later experiments indicating that higher soil pH favoured volatilization of [14C]fenpropimorph from sandy soils. Thus 5·6% (pH 5·0), 18·9% (pH 5·8) and 28·3% (pH 6·6) of the radioactivity applied volatilized within one day after application. The overall recoveries were between 93·8% and 111·3% in these experiments.