United States       Prevention, Pesticides     EPA712-C-96-306
          Environmental Protection    and Toxic Substances     February 1996
          Agency         (7101)
&EPA    Microbial Pesticide
           Test Guidelines
           OPPTS 885.2400
           Storage Stability

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                           INTRODUCTION
     This guideline is one  of a  series  of test  guidelines that have been
developed by the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances,
United States Environmental  Protection Agency for use  in the testing of
pesticides and toxic substances, and the  development of test data that must
be submitted to the Agency  for review under Federal regulations.

     The Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances (OPPTS)
has  developed this guideline through  a process of harmonization that
blended the testing  guidance  and requirements that  existed in the Office
of Pollution Prevention and  Toxics  (OPPT) and appeared in Title  40,
Chapter I,  Subchapter R of the Code of Federal Regulations  (CFR),  the
Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) which appeared in publications of the
National Technical  Information Service (NTIS) and the guidelines pub-
lished by the Organization  for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD).

     The purpose of harmonizing these  guidelines  into a single set of
OPPTS guidelines is to minimize  variations among the testing procedures
that must be performed to meet the data  requirements of the U. S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency  under  the Toxic  Substances  Control Act  (15
U.S.C. 2601) and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act
(7U.S.C. I36,etseq.).

     Final  Guideline Release: This guideline  is available from the U.S.
Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 on The Federal Bul-
letin   Board.   By  modem  dial   202-512-1387,  telnet   and   ftp:
fedbbs.access.gpo.gov    (IP     162.140.64.19),    internet:     http://
fedbbs.access.gpo.gov, or call 202-512-0132 for disks  or paper copies.
This guideline is also available electronically in ASCII and PDF (portable
document format) from the EPA Public Access Gopher  (gopher.epa.gov)
under the heading "Environmental Test  Methods and Guidelines."

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OPPTS 885.2400  Storage stability.
     (a) Scope—(1) Applicability. This guideline is intended to meet test-
ing requirements  of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide
Act (FIFRA) (7 U.S.C. 136, et seq.}.

     (2) Background. The source material used in developing this har-
monized OPPTS test guideline is OPP guideline 153A-9.

     (b) Data  submittal.  Storage stability  data, as  described in OPPTS
860.1340, must be submitted. Studies involve spiking representative plant
and animal samples with each residue of concern, storing under the same
conditions (usually subfreezing  temperatures) as the treated samples,  and
analyzing at the end of the treated sample storage period. It is imperative
that  samples be stored at temperatures low  enough to prevent replication
of the microbial pest control agent (MPCA)  or production of biochemicals
of concern. Note  that freezing may  be injurious to some MPCAs.  If this
is  the case, very short harvest-to-analysis intervals must be used or other
storage conditions must be devised.

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