Detoxification plays an important role in herbicide action. Herbicide safeners selectively protect crops from herbicide injury without reducing the herbicidal efficiency against the target weeds. With the large-scale use of herbicides, herbicide safeners have been widely used in sorghum, wheat, rice, corn, and other crops. In recent years, an increasing number of unexpected new herbicide safeners have been designed. The varieties, structural characteristics, uses, and synthetic routes of commercial herbicide safeners are reviewed in this paper. The design ideas and structural characteristics of novel herbicide safeners are summarized, which provide a basis for the design of bioactive molecules as new herbicide safeners in the future.
Keywords: design; herbicide safener; research progress; synthesis.