Dressing seeds with pesticides to control pests is a widespread practice with important advantages. Recent incidents of bee losses, however, have directed attention to the emission of abraded pesticide-coated seed particles to the environment during sowing. This phenomenon of drift of pesticide dust can lead to pesticide contamination of air, water and other natural resources in crop-growing areas. This review article presents the state of the art of the phenomenon of dust emission and drift from pesticide seed dressing during sowing and its consequences. Firstly, pesticide seed treatment is defined and its pros and cons are set out, with the focus on dust, dust emission and dust drift from pesticide-coated seed. The factors affecting emission of pesticide dust (e.g. seed treatment quality, seed drilling technology and environmental conditions) are considered, along with its possible effects. The measuring techniques and protocols and models currently in use for calculating the behaviour of dust are reviewed, together with their features and limitations. Finally, possible mitigation measures are discussed, such as improving the seed quality and the use of modified seed drilling technology, and an overview of regulations and stewardship activities is given.

Crop seeds are often treated with pesticides before planting. Pesticide-laden dust particles can be abraded from the seed coating during planting and expelled into the environment, damaging nontarget organisms. Drift of these dust particles depends on their size, shape and density. In this work, we used X-ray micro-CT to examine the size, shape (sphericity) and porosity of dust particles from treated seeds of various crops. The dust properties quantified in this work were very variable in different crops. This variability may be a result of seed morphology, seed batch, treatment composition, treatment technology, seed cleaning or an interaction of these factors. The intraparticle porosity of seed treatment dust particles varied from 0.02 to 0.51 according to the crop and generally increased with particle size. Calculated settling velocities demonstrated that accounting for particle shape and porosity is important in drift studies. For example, the settling velocity of dust particles with an equivalent diameter of 200 μm may vary between 0.1 and 1.2 m s(-1), depending on their shape and density. Our analysis shows that in a wind velocity of 5 m s(-1), such particles ejected at 1 m height may travel between 4 and 50 m from the source before settling. Although micro-CT is a valuable tool to characterize dust particles, the current image processing methodology limits the number of particles that can be analyzed.

During sowing of pesticide-treated seeds, pesticide-laden dust and abraded seed particles may be emitted to the environment, possibly leading to environmental contamination and posing health risks. In many countries there is currently no legislation concerning the acceptable amount of dust of treated seeds. This study aimed to gain insight in the abrasion potential of available pesticide-treated seeds and its associated factors. The abrasion potential of 45 seed samples of 7 different species (viz. sugar beet, oat, barley, wheat, spelt, pea, and maize) was determined using the Heubach test and amounts of dust were expressed as g 100 kgseeds −1, g 100,000 seeds−1, and g ha−1. The abrasion potential fell generally within the boundaries of maximum permissible values adopted by different countries. Species, seed treatment company, number of active ingredient (AIs) and combination of AIs had significant effects on the abrasion potential, whereas little or no effect of agitation and conservation was found. However, species were situated differently with respect to each other depending on the unit in which the abrasion potential was expressed. A standard unit that takes into account the species’ seed rate is suggested to give the fairest assessment of dust drift risk and would allow international comparison.

The gathered physico-chemical information is essential for the computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based dust drift prediction models and can be useful for other prediction models as well as for the ongoing risk assessment of active ingredients used for seed treatment on ecosystems and ecosystem-services. In addition, the results can help to better understand the dust drift phenomenon and to develop mitigation strategies. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

All particle sizing techniques have their (dis)advantages and none of them is able to perfectly describe the real size distribution of non-spherical particles. The particle size information gathered can be used in dust drift prediction models, risk assessment tools and will help to better understand the dust drift phenomenon. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.