This review represents systematic and integrated picture of pesticide exposure to plant and its effect on growth and metabolism. Decades ago, agrochemicals were introduced aiming at enhancing crop yields and protecting crops from pests. Due to adaptation and resistance developed by pests to chemicals, every year higher amounts and new chemical compounds are used to protect crops, causing undesired side effects and raising the costs of food production. Biological chemical free agriculture is gaining also more and more support but it is still not able to respond to the need for producing massive amounts of food. The use of agrochemicals, including pesticides, remains a common practice especially in tropical regions and South countries. Cheap compounds, such as DDT, HCH, and Lindane, that are environmentally persistent, are today banned from agriculture use in developed countries, but remain popular in developing countries. As a consequence, persistent residues of these chemicals contaminate food and disperse in the environment. Therefore, the thrust of this paper was to review the application of pesticides effect early from germination to growth of the plant, leading to alteration in biochemical, physiological and different enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants which ultimately affect the yield and resulted in residues in plant, vegetables, and fruits.

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Chlorpyrifos is a widely used broad-spectrum organophosphate insecticide in the agricultural practice. However, extensive use of this insecticide may lead to its accumulation in ecosystem, thus inducing the toxicity to crops and vegetables. To assess chlorpyrifos-induced toxicity in plants, we performed the experiment focusing on the growth and nitrogen metabolism of green gram plant (Vigna radiata L.). 20-days-old plants were subjected to chlorpyrifos at concentrations ranging from 0 to 1.5 mM through foliar spray in the field condition. Variation in root and shoot length, activities of nitrate reductase (NR) and content of nitrate, sugar, soluble amino acid and soluble protein were studied at preflowering (5 day after treatment, DAT), flowering (10 DAT) and postflowering (20 DAT) stages of plant development. Of the various concentrations of chlorpyrifos, 0.6 and 1.5 mM showed comparatively more severe toxicity to green gram plants by decreasing root and shoot length, nitrate, NR, soluble sugar and protein content where as at low concentration (0.3 mM) of chlorpyrifos proved stimulant for same parameter. Increase in soluble amino acid was observed in age and dose dependent manner. These results reflect strong parallelism between growth and biochemical activities of the model plant. Further lower dose of chlorpyrifos proved as stimulant where as at higher concentration proved detrimental for growth and nitrogen metabolism.

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