{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,18]],"date-time":"2026-10-18T19:39:29Z","timestamp":1792352369421,"version":"4.4.0"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790640000000},"content-version":"am","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/pages\/standard-publication-reuse-rights"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100015614","name":"Corteva Agriscience","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100015614","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Assessing pesticide degradation in soil is crucial for environmental risk assessment and regulatory decision-making. Traditional quantitative structure-activity relationships models rely on chemical structure to predict pesticide behavior, often overlooking the influence of soil properties. In this study, soil properties and chemical structures were integrated to investigate the key variables affecting pesticide degradation. Using two datasets\u2014an industry-internal dataset and the publicly available Pesticide Properties Database\u2014extreme gradient boosting regression modeling and Shapley additive explanations were applied to identify the most important predictors of pesticide half-life of degradation. The important molecular descriptors derived from the analysis are structural variables (number of aromatic atoms, hybridization ratios), molecular connectivity, reactivity (topological polar surface area efficiency), electronic properties (HOMO-LUMO gap, which is the energy difference between the lowest unoccupied and highest occupied molecular orbitals), and hydrophobicity (octanol\u2013water partition coefficient), and equally, the following soil properties: pH, soil organic carbon content, clay content, and microbial biomass, improved predictive performance, reducing mean squared error, and increasing the coefficient of determination values. Despite differences in compound composition and experimental conditions across datasets, a substantial overlap in the key predictors found to be important, was observed. The findings underscore the importance of chemical structure and soil characteristics in degradation dynamics, with the former providing the greatest predictive power and the latter still adding some important improvement to the final model. By integrating multiple variables, our approach allows for more realistic and reliable predictions of pesticide persistence and can be extended to field-related conditions, mixtures, and multiple stressors in the future and provide support for improved environmental risk assessment and regulatory frameworks.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/etojnl\/vgag256","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T15:17:41Z","timestamp":1790695061000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Modeling pesticide degradation in soil: Influence of chemical and soil properties on half-life of degradation prediction"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7254-2368","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chongmeng","family":"Xu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Corteva Agriscience , Abingdon,","place":["United Kingdom"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fred","family":"Worrall","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Science Laboratories, Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University , Durham,","place":["United Kingdom"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mitchell","family":"Burns","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Corteva Agriscience France SAS , Guyancourt,","place":["France"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0009-8213-8559","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andrew","family":"Eatherall","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"ERM , London,","place":["United Kingdom"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sean","family":"Gehen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Corteva Agriscience , Indianapolis, IN,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026101814413537800_vgag256-B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1330","DOI":"10.3390\/life14101330","article-title":"The HOMO-LUMO gap as discriminator of biotic from abiotic chemistries","volume":"14","author":"Abrosimov","year":"2024","journal-title":"Life"},{"key":"2026101814413537800_vgag256-B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"247","DOI":"10.1016\/j.agee.2007.07.011","article-title":"The mobility and degradation of pesticides in soils and the pollution of groundwater resources","volume":"123","author":"Arias-Est\u00e9vez","year":"2008","journal-title":"Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment"},{"key":"2026101814413537800_vgag256-B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"112830","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ecoenv.2021.112830","article-title":"Prediction of phthalate acid esters degradation in soil using QSAR model: A combined consideration of soil properties and quantum chemical parameters","volume":"226","author":"Bai","year":"2021","journal-title":"Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety"},{"key":"2026101814413537800_vgag256-B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"118212","DOI":"10.1016\/j.envres.2024.118212","article-title":"Biodegradation of chlorpyrifos pollution from contaminated environment - A review on operating variables and mechanism","volume":"248","author":"Bosu","year":"2024","journal-title":"Environmental Research"},{"key":"2026101814413537800_vgag256-B5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"6138","DOI":"10.1021\/es050622q","article-title":"Sorption of polar and nonpolar aromatic organic contaminants by plant cuticular materials:\u2009 Role of polarity and accessibility","volume":"39","author":"Chen","year":"2005","journal-title":"Environmental Science & Technology"},{"key":"2026101814413537800_vgag256-B6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","author":"Chen","year":"2016","DOI":"10.1145\/2939672.2939785"},{"key":"2026101814413537800_vgag256-B7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"4977","DOI":"10.1021\/jm4004285","article-title":"QSAR modeling: Where have you been? 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