How does atrazine work

Atrazine is a popular herbicide that you can use to spruce up your lawn. Atrazine should be used on dry ground. An overwatered lawn can actually make the weed killer less effective. Atrazine comes in a concentrated form. If you were to use it straight from the container, it would be a serious overload for your grass. For every sq. Do not mix atrazine with another weed killer. It should be able to handle the job on its own. You should always use protective gear when spraying this chemical on your lawn.

In fact, direct contact with the herbicide can be dangerous. You should be focusing your atrazine only grass weeds or broadleaf weeds. The weed killer will get rid of the plants that are already growing along with those that are still in their seed form. After applying it, atrazine will not need to be watered in. General Fact Sheet. Infographic: Systemic Pesticides.

FAQ: Can I plant vegetables after using a weed killer? FAQ: How can I protect my pets when using pesticides around them? If you have questions about this, or any pesticide-related topic, please call NPIC at am - pm PST , or email at npic ace. Therefore, it is a useful tool for both agricultural and urban sites. Atrazine is generally applied to soil or turfgrass surfaces in a uniform, broadcast manner to ensure adequate distribution over the area in which weed control is desired.

Rainfall or irrigation shortly after application transports atrazine into the upper soil profile where plant seedlings germinate. These seedlings take up the herbicide through the roots and, depending on their tolerance, they may or may not survive.

If rainfall or irrigation water accumulates at the soil surface faster than it can percolate into the upper soil profile, this standing water might run off the site of application, carrying some of the atrazine. Since atrazine is moderately water soluble, it will be present in the surface runoff water as well as in the soil water percolating downward. Atrazine is needed in the upper soil profile for weed control.

Its movement downward through the soil, or leaching, is limited by its ability to attach itself to soil particles. Soils high in clay and organic matter content are less likely to let atrazine move downward than sandy soils.

Atrazine will generally stay in the upper 1 to 6 inches of the soil profile on most agricultural soils. The presence of atrazine in surface water runoff is of greatest concern.

Atrazine can be washed off the site of application to other sites where non-tolerant vegetation grows. It also can be carried into streams and other tributaries that flow into surface water that may be used as a source for drinking water.

Atrazine has also been used in conservation tillage systems to control weeds and reduce soil erosion. As late as , it was estimated that atrazine was the most commonly used herbicide in the world with applications in 80 countries.

But studies around that time showed that atrazine was dissolving into water in the fields and was showing up in streams and underground drinking water supplies all over the world.

The European Union banned all use of atrazine in because of persistent groundwater contamination. In , Nebraska farmers applied atrazine to 77 percent of the corn acres in the state. That's the most recent reporting year on file at the Lincoln office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service. During this same time period, genetically modified organism GMO crops have taken over across the American Midwest.

Nebraska and South Dakota were the two highest percentage states at 97 percent each.