Tainting of Tobacco by a Dichloropropene–Dichloropropane Soil Fumigant

Abstract

I WISH to refer to the letter under the above title from Dr. C. J. Shepherd in Nature of December 20, p. 1073. The work mentioned was carried out while Dr. Shepherd was employed by the Tobacco Pest Control Research Scheme here and was submitted to the Executive Committee, of which I was chairman. After very full consideration it was decided that the results of this particular investigation should not be published, as it was of a preliminary nature and carried out on a commercial crop on a farm. In other words, no control was possible and it is even conceivable that the tainting resulted from incorrect use of the fumigant. The Tobacco Pest Control Research Scheme has ceased operations and its activities have been handed over to the Tobacco Research Board, which has well-designed experiments in progress to check this using both dichloropropene–dichloropropane and ethylene dibromide.