Atrazina: 50 años de éxito

Por Andrea Klosterman Harris|8 de octubre de 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.

Sin embargo, desde que la EPA volvió a registrar la atrazina para uso fitosanitario en 2006, el herbicida no ha excedido los límites federales. Según Syngenta, tanto la EPA como la Organización Mundial de la Salud han concluido que cuando se usa como se indica en la etiqueta, la atrazina es segura para su uso. Específicamente, se considera una herramienta fundamental para su uso en sistemas de labranza de conservación y labranza cero y es popular hoy en día en más de 60 países.
— Compiled by Andrea K. Harris, Assistant Editor