PRESENT STATUS AND SCOPE OF FURTHER WORK IN INDIA ON DEGRADATION OF PESTICIDES APPLIED TO CROPS

On degradation of pesticides in plants and soil under semi-tropical an d tropical conditions. most of the studies have been carried out on in secticides, neglecting fungicides, herbicides and nematicides. The res earches conducted so far deal mainly with persistence of the parent co mpound recovered from the plants. No information has been generated on metabolites, conjugates and bound residues formed during the post-app lication period. These conjugates and bound residues need to be charac terized and their bio-availability has to be evaluated. Monitoring of pesticide residues hag widespread contamination of environment with th em, particularly with residues of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) and 1, 1 , 1-trichloro-2,2-bis (p-chlorophenyl)-ethane (DDT). Micro-organisms i n nature are able to degrade a large quantity of many of these compoun ds. Methods have to be developed to decontaminate the environment from pesticide residues. The pesticidal-degradation character of several m icrobes has been located on small fragment of extrachromosomal deoxyri bonucleic acid (the plasmid). Though sone bacterial strains, viz Flavo bacterium sp ATCC 27551 and Pseudomonas sp, capable of degrading toxic pesticides have been isolated, they need to be tested in field.