To
explore pesticide uptake from soil into a growing potato, a
moving-boundary dynamic model is proposed on the basis of the radical
diffusion process of a chemical to a sphere. This model, which considers
the logistic growth of the potato tuber, describes two hypothetical
processes of chemical diffusion within a growing tuber. The model
was tested in an illustrative case study for an application of chlorpyrifos.
Results indicate that the distribution of chlorpyrifos concentrations
along the potato radius is significantly affected by the tuber development.
In comparison of our results to results from a classic model using
a fixed boundary, the proposed dynamic model yields a quick and big
jump for both the average concentration and bioconcentration factor
(BCF) of chlorpyrifos in the potato as a result of the sigmoid expansion
boundary. Overall, the dynamic model predicts that chlorpyrifos BCFs
in the potato at harvest are higher than those using the classical
model. In comparison of model results to measured uptake of chlorpyrifos
into potato at harvest, the dynamic model shows better performance
than the classical model. Our results provide a new perspective on
pesticide uptake into potatoes and inform human health risk assessment
for pesticides applied at different tuber growth stages.