Pesticides include any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest, and any substance or mixture of substances intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant. Pests targeted by pesticides includes weeds, insects, fungi, and other forms of life. Herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and other chemicals make up the four classes of pesticides presented in this report. Miticides and nematicides are included as insecticides, while soil fumigants, growth regulators, defoliants, and desiccants are included as other chemicals. This report excludes pesticides used for seed treatments and for postharvest applications to the commodity.
Active ingredient is the specific chemical which kills or controls the target pests.
Usage data are reported by pesticide product and are converted to an amount of active ingredient. A singel method of conversion has been chosen for active ingredients having more than one way of being converted. For example in this report, copper compounds are expressed in their metallic copper equivalent, and others such as 2,4-D and glyphosate are expressed in their acid equivalent. Trade name is the actual product name given to a specific formulation of a pesticide product. A formulation contains a specific concentration of the active ingredient, carrier materials, and other ingredients such as emulsifiers and wetting agents.