Understanding potential (mutual) effect of multiple chemicals on their sorption behaviour in heterogenous soils (Bayer AG).

Plant Protection Products (PPPs) are essential component of a sustainable and an efficient food production ecosystem. To enable a more sustainable and environmentally friendly application of PPPs, an enhanced understanding of chemicals behaviour in soil is needed. This better understanding will help to potentially reduce the application of PPPs, ensures the delivery and retention of PPPs at target zones, and reduces their releases to undesired adjacent environment. The purpose of the presented challenge is to investigate the mechanism of the chemical sorption in the heterogenous agricultural lands. Bayer would like to understand a) whether the presence of chemical A influence the sorption of chemical B and 2) whether and how can the sorption rates that are measured from batch tests under equilibrium condition be transferred for modelling purposes to soil column tests and eventually to field conditions. It is desired to develop surrogate models to determine the most influential hydro-chemical characteristics governing the potential competitive sorption of chemical A and B, and to understand the impact of hydrodynamic and environmental condition on the interaction of the multicomponent agrochemicals with soil in the plant root zone.