Summary.A bioassay was used to study, adsorption of prometryne, simazine, linuron and pyrazon by fibrous peat, sphagnum moss, muck soil and bentonite as 1 % mixtures with quartz sand. Of these bentonite caused least reduction in bioactivity, and sphagnum moss reduced it only slightly more. Fibrous peat and muck soil were the most adsorptive. Prometryne, simazine and pyrazon were more highly adsorbed by fibrous peat than by muck soil, while for linuron the opposite occurred. Fibrous peat was approximately three, seven, thirteen and three times more adsorptive than bentonite for pyrazon, linuron, prometryne and simazine, respectively, while for muck soil the corresponding values were two, fourteen, seven and two.Studies with prometryne and five different soils indicated that percentage organic matter, cation‐exchange capacity and specific surface area were all highly correlated with adsorptio