Garlic, Pendimethalin, Persistence, Residues

A field experiment was conducted  to study the persistence and accumulation of pendimethalin residues in garlic. Pendimethalin was applied as pre-emergence treatment at three different doses, viz. 0.75, 1.5 and 3.0 kg/ha. Mature garlic bulbs were collected at crop harvest and soil samples were collected at 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 120 days after herbicide application and at crop harvest. These samples were analyzed for pendimethalin residues by a validated Gas Liquid Chromatography (GLC) method with an accepted recovery of 79.1–88.2%. The analysis showed that pendimethalin did not leave any residues in soil beyond harvest of the crop at any of the applied dose. On the other hand, garlic bulbs collected at harvest showed 0.004 µg/g pendimethalin residues at a dose of 3.0 kg/ha and below detectable limit (BDL) at 0.75 and 1.5 kg/ha.