Heavy metal accumulation in wheat and barley: The effects of soil presence and liquid manure amendment

Abstract

An experiment was undertaken to evaluate the effect of liquid manure amendment on heavy metal accumulation in wheat and barley. For this purpose, both kinds of seedlings were grown simultaneously in a Petri dish, while wheat seedlings were also grown in pots containing unpolluted agricultural soil. All of the seedlings were irrigated with one of the three prepared solutions: artificial rainwater solution, heavy metal solution and liquid manure solution containing NH₄NO₃, H₃PO₄ and KOH along with equal amounts of heavy metals as in the second solution. Twenty days later, 1 g of plant tissue was digested with the mixture of HNO₃ and H₂O₂ for ICP-OES/HG-ICP-OES analysis. The results showed that the uptake of arsenic and mercury was highest for both plants grown in a Petri dish. Furthermore, the wheat grown in a Petri dish also had a high content of nickel, cadmium and copper, while the pot-grown wheat contained high amounts of iron and manganese, probably due to the adsorption of nickel, cadmium, copper and mercury on soil phases. The lower uptake of all heavy metals was observed after the amendment of liquid manure, with the exception of manganese in wheat and mercury in all plants.

Keywords:

• Barley
• heavy metals
• liquid manure
• soil
• wheat

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia [grant number III 43007], [grant number 172030/2011] for this research.