Pesticides‐non target plants interactions: An overview

Abstract

Pesticides are widely used for crop protection in agriculture, plantation and forestry. Pesticides, when sprayed or dusted in the fields, only a small amount fall directly on the target organisms due to the small size and mobility of the pests. Most of them come to the soil or to the plants by direct precipitation or spray drift. Plants growing in the contaminated soil take up these chemicals along with water and mineral nutrients and translocate them to the aerial parts. Pesticides fallen on the leaf surface may find their way inside through leaf cuticle, stomata, hydrathodes, lenticels or tissues in the bark. Several factors influence pesticide uptake by plants. Pesticides are highly toxic chemicals and may not be absolutely specific in their actions. Impact of pesticide on plant depends upon its absorption, translocation and metabolism within the plant. Pesticides are usually detoxified in plants through series of degradation reactions and conjugation processes forming bound or insoluble residues. Failing to do so, plants show phytotoxic effects. Pesticides may affect different physiological processes in plants vital to their normal growth. They may also alter genetic materials in plants inducing gene mutation, chromosomal aberrations and chromosome break influencing their physiology and growth. Interaction of pesticides and their degradation products with non‐target plants is discussed here on different areas of research that are of particular interest in the context of this discussion.