The effect of equal Cd and Cu exposure in peat substrate on growth and bioaccumulation of Hordeum vulgare

Abstract

Environment pollution with heavy metals is becoming more important these days because of working industry, agriculture, raising usage of heavy metals and their emissions. In this work there was investigated the impact of two heavy metals Cd and Cu various concentrations (100; 200; 400; 800 and 1600 mg/kg soil) contaminated soil on barley (Hordeum vulgare) morphological parameters, content of photosynthetic pigment and malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration. Investigated plants were sown in vegetative pots with prepared peat and sand substrate (ratio 2:1), and 4 days after germination plants were watered with appropriate metal concentration solutions. Experiment lasted for 14 days, until the second true leaf unfolded. At the end of experiment the content of pigments was measured using spectrophotometer, MDA – using thiobarbituric acid method and also detected plants height and dry mass. For the quantitative determination of metals in plant material a Shimadzu AA-6800 atomic absorption spectrometer equipped with deuterium background correction, and single-element hollow-cathode lamps as radiation sources were used. Bioaccumulation factors (BAF) of Cu and Cd of barley plants were calculated according Mattina et al. method. Increasing metal concentrations decreased plant height and biomass, and Cd effect on morphological parameters were higher than Cu, when correlation between barley height and Cd concentration was -0.74 (p<0.05), and between height and Cu concentration – -0.39 (p<0.05). Increasing metal concentrations effect on photosynthetic pigments was different, i.e. under Cu effect the content of pigments (a+b) increased and correlation was 0.47 (p>0.05), while under Cd effect it decreased and correlation was -0.13, (p>0.05), but statistically insignificant. [...].