Pesticide Active Ingredients

Find chemical-specific information in pesticide ingredient fact sheets.

Active ingredients are the chemicals in pesticide products that kill, control, or repel pests. For example, the active ingredients in an herbicide are the ingredient(s) that kill weeds. Often, the active ingredients make up a small portion of the whole product.

A product label includes the name of each active ingredient and its concentration in the product.
A single active ingredient may be found in hundreds of pesticide products with different names.
Products with similar brand names may have different active ingredients with varying concentrations.
Some active ingredients work on a broad spectrum of pests. Others are more targeted, killing only certain things.
There are families of active ingredients that work in the same basic way. Using active ingredients from different chemical families can slow the development of pesticide resistance.

For more information:

Additional Resources:

Pesticide Chemical Search Tool - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Identify Active Ingredients - Video from e-how.com

If you have questions about this, or any pesticide-related topic, please call NPIC at 800-858-7378 (8:00am - 12:00pm PST), or email us at npic@ace.orst.edu.

Last updated February 14, 2019

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NPIC provides objective, science-based information about pesticides and pesticide-related topics to enable people to make informed decisions. NPIC is a cooperative agreement between Oregon State University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (cooperative agreement #X8-83947901). The information in this publication does not in any way replace or supersede the restrictions, precautions, directions, or other information on the pesticide label or any other regulatory requirements, nor does it necessarily reflect the position of the U.S. EPA.

Related Topics:

What are pests?

What are pesticides?