Estimates detail herbicide application for the sixty-first through eightieth most-used herbicides across the conterminous United States. Data includes acres treated, pounds of active ingredient used, and pounds used per square mile for each county. The estimates originate from Gianessi and Puffer (1991) and are based on cropping data from the 1987 Census of Agriculture.
Use Cases
- Analyze regional patterns of herbicide application intensity using the 'pounds used per square mile' metric.
- Compare total herbicide volumes across counties using the 'pounds of active ingredient used' column.
- Assess the extent of agricultural land treated with specific herbicides using the 'acres treated' data.
- Map relative herbicide use rates for broad regions using county-level polygon data.
Strengths
- Data provides three distinct quantitative measures (acres treated, pounds used, pounds per square mile) for each county.
- County boundaries and features are derived from a standardized national map source (1:2,000,000-scale Digital Line Graph files).
Limitations
- Data is temporally stale, based on 1987 cropping data and a 1991 source publication.
- County-level acreage estimates are subject to suppressions due to confidentiality rules, potentially creating data gaps.
Provenance
- Source
- Gianessi and Puffer (1991), using data from the 1987 Census of Agriculture.
- Collection Method
- Estimates derived from reported acres treated and pounds of active ingredient applied per crop per county.
- Time Range
- Based on 1987 agricultural data.
- Geography
- Conterminous United States (county-level).