Non-target impacts of pesticides on soil N transformations, abundances of nitrifying and denitrifying genes, and nitrous oxide emissions.

Agriculture is the leading contributor to global nitrous oxide (NO) emissions, mostly from soils. We examined the non-target impacts of four pesticides on N transformations, N cycling genes and NO emissions from sugarcane-cropped soil. The pesticides, including a herbicide glyphosate (GLY), an insecticide imidacloprid (IMI), a fungicide methoxy ethyl mercuric chloride (MEMC) and a fumigant methyl isothiocyanate (MITC), were added to the soil and incubated in laboratory at 25 °C.