Abstract

BACKGROUND: During the winter, the use of deicers was rapidly increased for reduction of traffic accidents as well as injuries in Korea, whose components are largely comprised of calcium chloride and sodium chloride. Recently, to reduce the adverse effects of chloride-deciers such as pollution of water and soil, and decrease of agricultural productivity, the attention of eco-friendly deciers have been increased. This study aimed to investigate biological effects of magnesium chloride deicer (PC-10) and organic acid deicer (EFD-1) against wheat, barley, and spinach. METHODS AND RESULTS: We examined the effect of two deciers, PC-10 and EFD-1 on the seed germination and growth of wheat, barley and spinach. EFD-1 showed higher suppression of the germination than PC-10 among tested crop seeds. In demage index of the seedlings of the crops, there was no symptoms in spinach such as spotting and color change of leaves. EFD-1 showed much stronger inhibitory effect on the germination of tested crop seeds than PC-10 when crops were exposed continuously to tested deciers in soils. The growth and shoot and root in examined crops was relatively higher in PC-10 treatment than in EFD-1 treatment when compared to the control. The biomass decrease was found in all examined conditions of deciers. PC-10 showed 23-35% reduction of biomass whereas EFD-1 exhibited 39-84% loss in all examined crops at over 2% concentration. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the effects of deicers used in this study by inputting into soil against growing tested crops cause the reduction of germination of seeds, growth, and biomass compared to the control.

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