Reducing Herbicides and Veterinary Antibiotics Losses from Agroecosystems Using Vegetative Buffers

Abstract

Multiple species vegetative buffer strips (VBSs) have been recommended as a cost-effective approach to mitigate agrochemical transport in surface runoff derived from agronomic operations, while at the same time offering a broader range of long-term ecological and environmental benefits. However, the effect of VBS designs and species composition on reducing herbicide and veterinary antibiotic transport has not been well documented. An experiment consisting of three VBS designs and one continuous cultivated fallow control replicated in triplicate was conducted to assess effectiveness in reducing herbicide and antibiotic transport for claypan soils. The three VBS designs include (i) tall fescue, (ii) tall fescue with a switchgrass hedge barrier, and (iii) native vegetation (largely eastern gamagrass). Rainfall simulation was used to create uniform antecedent soil moisture content in the plots and to generate runoff. Our results suggested that all VBS significantly reduced the transport of dissolved and sediment-bound atrazine, metolachlor, and glyphosate in surface runoff by 58 to 72%. Four to 8 m of any tested VBS reduced dissolved sulfamethazine transport in the surface runoff by more than 70%. The tall fescue VBS was overall most effective at reducing dissolved tylosin and enrofloxacin transport in the runoff (>75%). The developed exponential regression models can be used to predict expected field-scale results and provide design criteria for effective field implementation of grass buffers. Our study has demonstrated that an optimized VBS design may achieve desired agrochemical reductions and minimize acreage removed from crop production.

Occurrence, accumulation, attenuation and priority of typical antibiotics in sediments based on long-term field and modeling studies

“…It suggested that the concentrations of ofloxacin and enrofloxacin were less than other antibiotics currently, but they increased quickly. Recently, ofloxacin and enrofloxacin were frequently detected in sediments or soil [34,35], which supported the accumulation growth factor in this work. In contrast, the accumulation growth factors of oxytetracycline, ciprofloxacin and gentamicin were less than one suggesting their contamination decreased.…”

Consequences of phosphate application on glyphosate uptake by roots: Impacts for environmental management practices

“…In this context, implantation of man-made riparian buffer strips (RBS) at the boundary of the agricultural lands may limit runoff and decrease water contamination. The ability of these plants to perform efficient root uptake of these agricultural wastes plays an important role in RBS efficacy (Krutz et al, 2005;Lin et al, 2011). It was advance that glyphosate may compete with PO 4 3− for membrane carriers (Denis and Delrot, 1993;Morin et al, 1997), as it occurs with soil absorption sites.…”

Vegetative Buffer Strips for Reducing Herbicide Transport in Runoff: Effects of Buffer Width, Vegetation, and Season

“…Because these factors vary considerably between studies, a wide range of mitigation efficiencies have been reported in the literature for herbicides. For example, reductions in ATR transport by VBS varied from 11 to 100% of the applied mass (USDA‐NRCS, ; Popov et al ., ; Zhang et al ., ; Lin et al ., 2011a). Of the various factors involved, those that can be managed include vegetation type, buffer width, and buffer placement.…”

“…The effectiveness of VBS to reduce surface transport of organic contaminants is affected by numerous factors, including soil properties, buffer width, source to buffer area ratio (SBAR), buffer placement, runoff regime ( i.e ., sheet vs . concentrated flow), slope, rainfall intensity, antecedent soil water content, buffer vegetation, and the chemical properties of the contaminant (Reichenberger et al ., ; Lin et al ., , 2011a; Zhang et al ., ). Because these factors vary considerably between studies, a wide range of mitigation efficiencies have been reported in the literature for herbicides.…”