Pesticides are widely used in agriculture and their use is really fundamental to drive productivity
but at the same time there could be side effects
In this project we want to use high-throughput techniques,
both molecular and biochemical, to look at how pesticides affect microbial soil functions
in terms of their ability to drive important nutrient cycles.
Hi, my name is Enzo Lombi. I’m from the Future Industries Institute at the University of South Australia
and today we’re here at Mawson Lakes, at the institute, to speak about the project we have with SAGIT
about screening really commonly used pesticides for the effect on the important microbial function of soils.
In the first year of the project we’ll focus on lab-based experiments where we’ll take three soils from South Australia
– Eyre Peninsula, Hart field site and southwest – and we’ll apply twenty commonly used pesticides at rates
and then we’ll look at the effects of those pesticides on the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycle
in soils through both molecular techniques, as well as synthetic markers.
