Butralin
chemical compound
Butralin is a preemergent herbicide used to control suckers on tobacco in the United States, Australia, Mozambique and, for food crops also, China. It is a dinitroaniline, first registered in the US in 1976. It was used in the EU until a ban in 2009 due to its ecotoxicity.
Mode of action and effects
Butralin works by the HRAC mode of action Group D / K1 / 3, (Australian, Global, Numeric respectively), which involves inhibition of microtubule formation, by binding to tubulin, halting growth, and causing depolymerization.
In ryegrass meristems, butralin-treated roots show reduced elongation, but greater diameter. The cells' rate of mitosis lowers 36% after one hour, and they develop multiple nuclei. Butralin's effect is more similar to carbamate herbicides such as chlorpropham rather than other dinitroanilines.
Usage
Butralin is sold in Mozambique as "Tobralin 36% EC", made in South Africa. Users are instructed to pour 10 mL on each tobacco plant by hand, and not to unclog nozzles with their mouths.
In China, over 100 tons per year are used, as of 2022, on garlic, soybean, tomato, rice, peanut, pepper, cotton, eggplant, and watermelon.
“Butralin” enters the record as chemical compound. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Butralin, chemical and compound can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Butralin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.