Atrazine: 50 Years Of Success

Avatar for Matt Hopkins By Andrea Klosterman Harris|8 October 2009
Celebrating 50 years of effective weed control, atrazine has become one of the world’s most relied-upon herbicides. In the US, more than half of corn acres, two-thirds of sorghum acres and up to 90% of sugarcane acres use atrazine, according to Syngenta, which developed the triazine herbicide in the 1950s. In US studies during a 20-year period, the average corn yield was 5.1% higher with atrazine than without, while atrazine treated fields averaged 5.7 bushels more per acre than alternative herbicide treatments.

Atrazine has not been without its controversies, though; it was banned by the EU in 2003, and more recently has been the focus of environmental groups citations about the herbicide’s presence in drinking water and accusations that the the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ignored high levels of the chemical in watersheds.

However, since EPA re-registered atrazine for crop protection use in 2006, the herbicide has not exceeded federal limits. According to Syngenta, both the EPA and World Health Organization have concluded that when used as labeled, atrazine is safe for use. Specifically, it is considered a critical tool for use in conservation tillage and no-till systems and is popular today in more than 60 countries.
— Compiled by Andrea K. Harris, Assistant Editor

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