Phytoremediation potential of oat (Avena sativa L.) in soils contaminated with cadmium

B. Piršelová¹* Ľ. Galuščáková¹, L. Lengyelová¹, V. Kubová¹, R. Matúšová², K. Bojnanská³ and M. Havrlentová³⁴

¹Department of Botany and Genetics, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Informatics, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Nábrežie mLádeže 91, SK949 74 Nitra, Slovakia
²Institute of Plant Genetics and Biotechnology, Plant Science and Biodiversity Centre, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Akademická 2, P.O. Box 39A, SK950 07 Nitra, Slovakia
³National Agricultural and Food Centre, Research Institute of Plant Production in Piešťany, SK921 68 Piešťany, Slovakia
⁴Department of Biotechnologies, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, 917 01 Trnava, Slovakia
*Correspondence: bpirselova@ukf.sk

Abstract:

Human activities can cause enormous damage to agricultural soils through the accumulation of toxic metals in the soil. The identification of plants capable of accumulating relatively large amounts of these compounds in plant tissues with the aim of reducing or limiting soil toxicity is of great interest. Two independent pot experiments were conducted to evaluate the phytoremediation potential of different varieties of oat (Avena sativa L.) grown in soil contaminated with cadmium (Cd, 50 mg kg^-1 soil). Eight varieties were cultivated for 21 days in Cd- contaminated soil. Five varieties of oat were exposed to Cd at the third leaf stage, followed one week later by exposure to oat powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f. sp. avenae) for 35 days. In general, the tested varieties accumulated more Cd in the roots than in the shoots and showed a high tolerance to Cd. Metal accumulation in shoots was lower after 21 days of cultivation (8.30–17.27 mg Cd kg^-1) than after 42 days (13.72–35.20 mg Cd kg^-1) and was the highest in tissues of plants infected with B. graminis (48.17–96.20 mg kg^-1). In conclusion, our results indicate a good phytostabilization and remediation potential of oat (varieties Racoon and Vaclav) for soil contaminated with cadmium.

Key words:

Avena sativa L., cadmium tolerance, phytostabilization, remediation