Unraveling the\nMetabolic Enigma: A High-Resolution\nLC–MS Approach to Decipher Two Triazine Herbicides Tolerance\nin Radish and Rice

Our study investigated the effects of terbuthylazine\n(TBA) and\nmetribuzin (MT) on rice and radish at field application concentrations.\nBoth herbicides induced oxidative stress and severely inhibited growth\nin the two crops. However, the radish cultivar T-33 exhibited significantly\nlower stress levels compared to the sensitive cultivar S-24, suggesting\nits higher tolerance to TBA and MT. To explore the potential role\nof metabolism in this tolerance, we developed a novel HPLC-Q-TOF-MS\nmethod, which demonstrated excellent performance and identified 18\nTBA and 20 MT metabolites, most of which were discovered in plants\nfor the first time. The results revealed significantly higher accumulation\nof both herbicides in rice compared to radish, especially in the aerial\nparts, with increasing translocation in rice and the opposite trend\nin radish. Quantitative analysis revealed significantly higher levels\nof glycosylated MT products and amino acid conjugates in T-33 compared\nto S-24, suggesting their crucial role in detoxification and tolerance\nmechanisms. Our findings have significant implications for food safety,\ncrop protection, and sustainable agricultural practices in regions\nemploying vegetable–crop rotation systems.