Determination of residues of the herbicides bromacil, lenacil and terbacil in soils by gas chromatography

Abstract

A rapid and sensitive procedure for the determination of residue levels of three uracil herbicides in soils is described. After addition of calcium hydroxide and Celite to the soil the herbicides are eluted from columns with water. After acidification of the eluate and partition into chloroform these herbicides are determined by gas chromatography using a nitrogen-selective detector.Recoveries from a range of soil types are better than SO%, with a sensitivity limit of 20 ,ug kg-l.

Determination of bromacil in groundwater and in high organic matter soils

“…The detection limit of this method for soil extraction (0.01 mg/kg for a 50 g soil sample) is lower than that of Caverly and Denney (1977) and Cotterill (1980) both with limits of 0.1 mg/kg and equal to Jolliffe et al (1967) who had a detection limit of 0.01 mg/kg from 100 g soil sample. The reproducibility of this method was also good.…”

“…Most of the extraction methods for bromacil residues in soil (Pease, 1966;Jolliffe et al, 1967; Caverly and Denney, 1977;Byast et al, 1977), although efficient, appear to have been developed on low organic matter soils with little reference to weathered residues. Also, some of the methods use solvents, such as chloroform (Pease, 1966; Caverly and Denney, 1977), which if possible should be avoided due to safety concerns.…”