Gerstl, Z., Institute Soils and Water, The Volcani Center, POB 6, Bet Dagan, 50-250, Israel
Helling, C.S., U.S. Department of Agriculture, ARS, Beltsville, Maryland 20705, United States

The use of molecular connectivity (MC), a topological description of organic compounds, was evaluated for the estimation of adsorption of organic pesticides by soils. Adsorption data were evaluated for over 40 pesticides from all classes of commonly used pesticides. The predictive ability of MC for such a heterogeneous group was rather low, but the data for two homogeneous groups showed that the MC indices can be used with a high degree of accuracy for predicting the adsorption of members of such a group. Correlation of the pesticides’ solubility and octanol-water partition coefficient with MC indices also was low. © 1987, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.