Influence of carbon and nitrogen application on the mineralization of atrazine and its metabolites in soil

It has been proposed that levels of carbon and nitrogen in soil affect the rate at which triazine herbicides degrade. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of varying the levels of initial soil carbon and nitrogen as well as the effects of a later carbon addition on the mineralization of atrazine and its metabolites in soil. Atrazine degradation in soils amended with carbon as mannitol, and with nitrogen as urea, at levels of 10, 30, 50, or 80 mg kg-1 mannitol, urea, or mannitol and urea was similar to degradation in unamended soils. Only 39% of applied atrazine was mineralized after 326 days regardless of the initial carbon or nitrogen treatment. In contrast, a second mannitol amendment of 1 g kg-1 soil at day 140 increased [14C] carbon dioxide evolution by an additional 17% as a result of enhancing the mineralization rate of the atrazine metabolites. This conclusion is supported by our finding that periodic extraction of the soil with methanol followed by quantification on HPLC showed complete dissipation of the parent atrazine in 120 days. The metabolites hydroxyatrazine (HA), deisopropylatrazine (DIA), deethylatrazine (DEA), and diaminochlorotriazine (DACT) began to appear in the methanol extract 10 days following atrazine application. The greatest concentrations of HA, DEA, DIA, and DACT in the methanol extracts were 19, 12.4, 10.1, and 6.7% of applied atrazine, respectively. These concentrations were observed at day 95 except for DEA where the concentration continued to increase until day 142. A second soil extraction with hydrochloric acid (1 M) + methanol (20 + 80 by volume) recovered additional HA, deethylhydroxyatrazine (DEHA), deisopropylhydroxyatrazine (DIHA), and DACT. When the extraction data were combined, 31.9, 12.4, 10.1, 10.2, 12.0 and 7.8% of applied atrazine was recovered as HA, DEA, DIA, DEHA, DIHA, and DACT, respectively. Combustion of the extracted soil showed 20% of the applied atrazine remained as soil-bound residues after 326 days.