Soil dissipation and leaching behavior of a neonicotinoid insecticide thiamethoxam

Persistence and leaching of thiamethoxam in soil were studied under laboratory conditions. The persistence studies carried out at two fortification levels and under three moisture regimes revealed that thiamethoxam persisted beyond 90 days in all the treatments with half-life varying from 46.3 to 301.0 days. Under dry conditions, the dissipation was faster at 10 mg kg(-1) level as compared to 1 mg kg(-1), whereas the reverse trend was observed under field capacity moisture and submerged conditions. The effect of moisture was prominent and longer persistence was observed under dry conditions (t(1/2) 200.7-301.0 days) followed by field capacity moisture (t(1/2) 91.2-94.1 days) and submerged condition (t(1/2) 46.3-75.3 days). The leaching experiment carried out under laboratory conditions showed that on leaching the soil column with water equivalent to 65 cm rainfall, 66-79% of the applied thiamethoxam was recovered from leachate and no residues were detected in soil. Results showed that thiamethoxam has a potential to leach down under heavy rainfall conditions.