Effect of Copper Fungicide on Earthworm, Lampito mauritii

Abstract

Copper such as copper oxychloride has wide use as a fungicide/bactericide which prevents infection in plants. The recommended dose of copper oxychloride for rice fields is 3 g/l which contains 50% copper i.e 1.5 g copper/l or 1500 ppm. The earthworms that play a major role in soil physical, chemical and biological improvement of soil are exposed to the copper fungicide. During the suspension culture the epi-anecic earthworm, Lampito mauritii (Kinberg) could not survive beyond 30 ppm. So, the earthworms were exposed to lethal levels of copper i.e., 0, 10, 20 and 30 ppm of copper and the effect on growth, feeding, respiration, excretion and regeneration was found to be significantly deleterious. On exposure to a sublethal dose of copper oxychloride the respiration increased but there was a marked reduction in growth, feeding, excretion and regeneration. The positive contribution of the earthworm was hampered but it continued to utilize energy from the system and this was the major finding of this work.