Assessment of Lead, Copper and Cadmium Tolerance by Four Vegetable Species

Heavy metal pollution in agriculture soils has serious negative effects on human health and has become an important issue both in developed and developing countries. This study was conducted in ElOurdanine region (Monastir, Tunisia) and performed at four different sites using treated wastewater for irrigation. The aim is to detect the ability of accumulation of some heavy metals by four vegetable crops: peas (leguminosae), carrot (Apiaceae), lettuce (Asteraceae) and spinach (Chenopodiaceae) grown in contaminated soil. Total of 4 soils samples from the four experimental sites were collected and analyzed before and after vegetables cultivation. The quantitative content of Cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu) and lead (Pb) in the four species revealed differential abilities of accumulation. Significant differences were recorded. The comparison of the four species together showed that lettuce and spinach are the most accumulators of heavy metals, an average concentrations above than 7.50 mg.kg-1 DM were recorded, while the pea pods were characterized by the lower concentrations (<0.5 mg.kg-1 DM for Cd), carrot expressed a moderate accumulation with an average of four sites not exceeding 3 mg.kg-1 DM for Cd. The lower accumulators (pea and carrot) would be most suitable for cultivation on contaminated soils while both spinach and lettuce appear to be high accumulators of Cd and Pb that are considered a higher risk to human health than Cu

The Effects of Salt Stress on Germination, Seedling Growth and Biochemical Responses of Tunisian Squash (Cucurbita maxima Duchesne) Germplasm

Salt stress is considered as one of the most common abiotic stresses reducing the productivity and fruit quality of crop plants. The present study was carried out to assess the salt tolerance among 15 local squash (Cucurbita maxima Duchesne) landraces. Different salt (NaCl) concentrations of 0, 100, 200 and 300 mM were selected in order to evaluate the response of the study germplasm to salt stress based on 12 agronomic parameters and 3 biochemical traits, proline, malondialdehyde (MDA) and chlorophylls. A varied effect of the salt stress level was observed among the studied landraces based on germination potential, as well as on growth and biochemical parameters at seedling stage. Results showed that all landraces were drastically affected at high stress level with a significant variation in their stress response, indicating the existence of considerable genetic variability. Landraces “746” and “747” were the best performing cultivars across stress levels, whereas “1007”, “1008” and “1009” were the most negatively affected. Based on the tested landrace performance, four landraceswere selected and further evaluated at biochemical level, focusing on the determination of compounds that play a key role in the ability to withstand salt stress. The mean MDA content across landraces was generally increased in stressed plants, as compared to the control treatment; the increase was attributed to a peak in MDA content at specific stress levels. In particular, “746” and “1007” showed the maximum content at 100 mM NaCl, while in landrace “751”, MDA content reached its peak at 300 mM NaCl. In addition, the response of most landraces to salt stress involved an increase in free proline content, with the exception of “746”, with the maximum content being observed either at 200 mM (“748” and “751” landraces) or at 300 mM NaCl, where only “747” expressed the highest content. These findings can be extrapolated into efforts to develop more salt-tolerant squash landraces and exhaust the possibilities of using saline water or soils under changing climate conditions

Effects of Lead, Copper and Cadmium on Bioaccumulation and Translocation Factors and Biosynthesis of Photosynthetic Pigments in Vicia faba L. (Broad Beans) at Different Stages of Growth

Trace elements in the environmental media contribute to toxicities of different types. Their presence in the arable pedosphere is a human-health risk factor. This study focused on Vicia faba represented by two Tunisian varieties of bean (Mamdouh) and faba bean (Badii). The objective was to analyze the effects of lead, copper and cadmium on their growth, chlorophyll-content and carotenoids-content, as well as the bioaccumulation and translocation factor, at different stages of growth. For each metal, the concentrations the plants were subjected to were 6, 0.3 and 0.03 mg/L of the metal in the compound for lead nitrate, copper nitrate and cadmium acetate, respectively. The analysis was carried out using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (ICP-MS), encompassing all the parts of the plant. The authors detected a perceptible decrease in the fresh weight of roots and shoots, as well as a drop in the chlorophyll and carotenoid, for all the three heavy metals. Cadmium turned out to be the most toxic of the three metals and copper (which is incidentally an essential micronutrient for plant growth) the least. As far as the bioaccumulation factor was concerned, bean and faba bean exhibited different behaviours, both with regard to the growth stages and the heavy metal absorbed. During the vegetative growth stage, both were accumulators of all the three heavy metals (a translocation factor less than unity). However, in the flowering stage, faba bean was a hyper-accumulator of copper (TF > 1); while the bean plants accumulated a lot of lead in the pods-stage (TF > 1). It is worthwhile to pose new research questions and try to answer them in this study, if legumes are accumulator or hyper accumulator plants in which stage and in where organ accumulate more HMs