Exploring quinoa's phytoremediation ability in cadmium contaminated soil

Abstract

To clean soil and environment, many traditional methods are used. But these techniques are costly and difficult to perform. Other than these techniques, phytoremediation is a cost effective and potential method to remediate metals from soil. In phytoremediation, special plants, hyperaccumulators are used to remove metals. Chenopodium quinoa, a halophyte has great potential to grow on and clean polluted soil. To check the potential of quinoa, experiment was conducted in Old Botanical Garden, Department of Botany, UAF. 4 lines of quinoa (A1, A2, UAF-Q7, A9) and 6 concentrations of Cadmium (0, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 mg kg-1 ) were used in the experiment. Data regarding morphological attributes, chlorophyll content and protein showed that these parameters increased at low levels of applied cadmium but they decreased at highest levels of cadmium treatments. Biochemical analysis of phenolics, H2O2, MDA, GB, activities of antioxidant enzymes enhanced with increasing levels of cadmium. Concentrations of mineral nutrients decreased with applied cadmium and cadmium content in different plant parts increased with every increased level of cadmium treatment. The yield parameters showed increase in growth upto 200 mg/kg and further increased levels reduced the yield of all lines of quinoa. Result showed that UAF-Q7 and A2 performed better in all above parameters as compared to A1 and A9. All data was statistically analyzed by using Co stat softwar