Keeping pesticides out of watercourses

摘要

Winter oilseed rape is the UK's second largest arable crop, worth some 400m a year at farmgate prices. It is also a vital break crop in heavy land rotations, providing farmers with good returns as well as an opportunity to control resistant blackgrass. However, weed control depends on four key chemicals (see table) and the crop usually requires treatment with slug pellets. All four chemicals and the slug pellet ingredient metaldehyde have been found in water at levels in excess of the one part per billion drinking water standard. That means water companies have to treat the water to ensure it meets this legal requirement.