Notice of RetractionBiodegradation of Pendimethalin by Two Fungus Strains Isolated from Soil in China

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

We hereby retract the content of this paper. Reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper.

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Pendimethalin is a dinitroaniline herbicide classified among persistent bio accumulative toxic compounds. To investigate the pendimethalin degradation potential of microorganisms, two fungus strains were isolated from pendimethalin-polluted soil taken from a pesticide plant in Shandong, China. Morphology experiments and a sequence analysis of ITS-rDNA genes were applied to indentify the fungal strains. In addition, conditions including carbon source, nitrogen source, pH value and temperature, were tested. The fungus strain FE2 was identified as Aspergillus terreus, while strain MEB8 was found to be A. versicolor. It was shown that with the addition of a 1-2% carbon source, the highest degradation rate of pendimethalin by FE2 was 85.7%, while that of MEB8 was 66.3% with a 1.5% carbon source. For FE2, the degradation rate reached a maximum of 58.7% at pH 7 with an increment of fungi growth of 4.75, while with MEB8, the degradation rate and increment at pH 6.5 were 61.2% and 6.55, respectively. At 10-30°C, the fungi showed incremental growth. It was concluded that the strains were the most effective at degrading pendimethalin in a weak acid solution at 30°C with a sucrose concentration of 1-2%.