Evaluation of the Use of Spring Rapeseed in Phytoremediation of Soils Contaminated with Trace Elements and Their Effect on Yield Parameters

Abstract

The experimental material was made up by the plant organs of Brassica napus L. from a pot experiment during one vegetation period. There was investigated the effect of relatively high concentration of zinc, copper, lead and cadmium in soil on the rapeseed yield, the content of protein and oil in seeds. The impact of metals was defined based on the content of selected fatty acids in oil extracted from seeds. The highest contents of zinc and copper were found in leaves, lead - in roots and cadmium - in stems. The biological concentration factor values were respectively calculated for all the rapeseed organs. For Cu and Pb the values of biological concentration factor were low and very low for all the plant organs. The doses of Zn (300 mg × kg[-1], 600 mg × kg[-1]) and Cu (80 mg × kg[-1], 160 mg × kg[-1]) applied in the pot experiment resulted in the translocation of metals from the roots to the leaves. The doses of lead (400 mg × kg[-1], 1600 mg × kg[-1]) did not trigger any translocation of that metal from the roots to the above-ground rapeseed plant parts, however, after the application of the cadmium doses (2 mg × kg[-1], 6 mg × kg[-1]), there was recorded a clear translocation of Cd to the rapeseed stems and the leaves. A relatively high content of zinc, copper, lead and cadmium in soil had a significant effect neither on the yield parameters and nor on the qualitative characters of the rapeseed seed. Neither did they affect the content of protein, fat and fatty acids in seed-extracted oil. The results of the pot experiment suggest that spring rapeseed is suitable for the phytoremediation of moderately heavy-metalcontaminated soils.