Prediction of pesticide migration in soils: The role of experimental soil control

Abstract

Optimal solutions found with mathematical models on agricultural chemical application depend on the interrelated complexity of the model and the required accuracy: the larger the number of complexly determined parameters, the more difficult the model. As a result, the calculation accuracy decreases. This problem should be solved with understanding of the physical aspects of the main soil processes of pesticide transport, experimental determination of their parameters, and adjustment of models in parallel with a substantiated reduction in their complexity. Experimental study of the physical processes with the PEARL 4.4.4 model and analysis of its sensitivity to the input parameters has shown which characteristics of experimental control are the most significant for water and pesticide migration. A filtration experiment with KCl made it possible to determine the dispersivity length and the filtration coefficient. As a result, a description of pesticide migration with fast water flows was introduced into the equation and the prediction accuracy increased.