1,3-DICHLOROPROPENE Soil Fumigant soil sterilant soil treatment chemical agricultural pesticide

1,3-dichloropropene soil fumigant economically and effectively manages many types of nematodes, viruses, bacteria, soil

insects, and fungi. Applied as a pre-plant soil treatment, 1,3-dichloropropene protects valuable vegetable, field, and nursery crops as well as planting sites for citrus trees, deciduous fruit trees, nut trees, berry bushes, and vines. By reducing nematode populations,1,3-dichloropropenegives plants time to establish a healthy root system that can support them throughout the growing season. The value to the grower is in the quality, quantity, packout, and uniformity of harvest.

1,3-dichloropropene will control pests in the soil treatment zone at the time of fumigation. It will not control pests introduced into the soil treatment zone after fumigation from sources such as contaminated soil, equipment, irrigation water, planting material, and nematodes that migrate up from below and from outside the fumigation zone.

HOW FUMIGATION WORKS

Nematodes live in the thin film of water that surrounds all soil particles. To control them, treatment must reach into their aqueous habitat and remain in contact with them at a strong enough concentration for an adequate length of time to deliver a lethal dose. Injected into the soil as a liquid, 1,3-dichloropropene quickly volatilizes into a gas and permeates the soil mass.

As gas, it reaches nematodes and fungi by moving through air spaces in the soil mass and dissolving into the film of water that surrounds soil particles. Effective pest control with 1,3-dichloropropene depends not only on its basic toxicity, but also on methods of application, rate of diffusion, degree of water solubility, adsorption and decomposition rate in the soil.