Fungicides are considered to be effective crop protection chemicals in modern agriculture. However, they can also exert toxic effects on non-target organisms, including soil-dwelling microbes. Therefore, the environmental fate of fungicides has to be closely monitored. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of the Falcon 460 EC fungicide on microbial diversity, enzyme activity and ...

BACKGROUND Suicide by organophosphorus poisoning is common in India. Study of factors associated with lethality may suggest methods for prevention. METHODS Severity of symptoms, biochemical manifestation of poisoning, degree of lethality and the outcome were studied with an aim to explore the modifiable factors associated with lethality and to discuss preventability. Clinical variables were c...

Pathogen exposure to sublethal doses of fungicides may result in mutations that may represent an important and largely overlooked mechanism of introducing new genetic variation into strictly clonal populations, including acquisition of fungicide resistance. We tested this hypothesis using the clonal plant pathogen, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. Nine susceptible isolates were exposed independently t...

Strobilurin fungicides produce intensified greening and delayed senescence in plants, and have been claimed to enhance yields of field crops in the absence of disease. To help evaluate this claim, available publicly sponsored tests of fungicides on soft red winter wheat in Virginia and North Carolina (n = 42) were analyzed for the period 1994 to 2010. All tests were replicated and had a randomi...

Many studies exist about the selection phase of fungicide resistance evolution, where a resistant strain is present in a pathogen population and is differentially selected for by the application of fungicides. The emergence phase of the evolution of fungicide resistance--where the resistant strain is not present in the population and has to arise through mutation and subsequently invade the pop...

A soil bacterium capable of metabolizing organophosphorus compounds by reducing the P S group in the molecules was taxonomically identified as Klebsiella sp. strain F51-1-2. The gene involved in the reduction of organophosphorus compounds was cloned from this strain by the shotgun technique, and the deduced protein (named AKR5F1) showed homology to members of the aldo-keto reductase (AKR) super...

One robust result from many small-scale experiments has been that plant community productivity often increases with increasing plant diversity. Most frequently, resource-based or competitive interactions are thought to drive this positive diversity-productivity relationship. Here, we ask whether suppression of plant productivity by soil fungal pathogens might also drive a positive diversity-pro...

Fungicide mixtures produced by the agrochemical industry often contain low-risk fungicides, to which fungal pathogens are fully sensitive, together with high-risk fungicides known to be prone to fungicide resistance. Can these mixtures provide adequate disease control while minimizing the risk for the development of resistance? We present a population dynamics model to address this question. We...

In three field trials fungicides used for stem rust (Puccinia graminis) control were evaluated to assess the effect on levels of blind seed disease, seed germination and endophyte (Neotyphodium lolii) transmission. Blind seed disease infection was reduced from 24% to 5% in one of the three trials undertaken and germination was increased by between 17 and 23% in two trials. There was a negative ...

Organophosphorus compounds, used as insecticides and agents of chemical warfare, are a major global cause of health problems. These irreversible inhibitors of cholinesterase produce three well-recognised clinical entities: the initial cholinergic phase, which is a medical emergency often requiring management in an intensive care unit; the intermediate syndrome, during which prolonged ventilator...