Epilogue: A Closing Perspective

In this book, we have documented the research direction, efforts, and accomplishments in agricultural chemistry over the last 40 yr, particularly with respect to advances made since Pesticides in Soil and Water (Guenzi, 1974) was published by the Soil Science Society of America in 1974. The development of a whole generation of pesticides was telescoped into the few years corresponding with the Second World War. DDT, 2,4-0, and indole acetic acid (lAA) were credited with saving millions of lives. New families of pesticides-the triazines, carbamates, organophosphates, substituted ureas, and bipyridinium compounds-sprang into use in the 1950s, 196Os, and 1970s. Thus, started one side of the chemical revolution in American agriculture. Concomitantly, with the development of new pesticide products was the change in fertilizer management practices from the use of rock phosphates, green manure crops, and animal manures as nutrient sources to the adoption of synthetically produced fertilizers and monoculture agriculture. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (Carson, 1962) created a national awareness and concern over the adverse effects of pesticides on birds of prey, farmers, other segments of the environment, and the populace. Although this was not the first report of environmental abuse (Young & Nicholson, 1951, had noted fish kills in 15 rural Alabama tributary streams to the Tennessee River when rainfall-generated run-off occurred shortly after pesticides were applied to cotton fields), the book created intense concern at the national and even the international levels. The era of environmental awareness started then and continues to the present.