Fibre crops as alternative land use for radioactively contaminated arable land

Abstract

The transfer of radiocaesium, one of the most important and widespread contaminants following a nuclear accident, to the fibre crops hemp ( Cannabis sativa L.) and flax ( Linum usitatissimum L.) as well as the distribution of radiocaesium during crop conversion were studied for sandy soil under greenhouse and lysimeters conditions. Soil parameters did not unequivoqually explain the transfer factors (TF) observed. TFs to flax stems ranged from 1.34 to 2.80 × 10 −3 m 2 kg −1. TFs to seeds are about a factor of 4 lower. During the retting process for separating the fibres from the straw, more than 95% of the activity was removed with the retting water. For hemp, the TF to the stem was about 0.6 × 10 −3 m 2 kg −1. For hemp, straw and fibres were mechanically separated and TF to straw was about 0.5 × 10 −3 m 2 kg −1 and to fibres 1.0 × 10 −3 m 2 kg −1. Generally, the TFs to the useable plant parts both for hemp and flax, are low enough to allow for the production of clean end-products (fibre, seed oil, biofuel) even on heavily contaminated land. Given the considerable decontamination during retting, contamination levels in flax fibres would only exceed the exemption limits for fibre use after production in extreme contamination scenarios (>12 300 kBq m −2). Since hemp fibres are mechanically separated, use of hemp fibres is more restricted (contamination <740 kBq m −2). Use of stems as biofuel is restricted to areas with contamination levels of <250 and 1050 kBq m −2 for flax and hemp, respectively. Use of seeds for edible oil production and flour is possible almost without restriction for flax but due to the high TFs to seed observed for hemp (up to 3 × 10 −3 m 2 kg −1) consumption of hemp seed products should be considered with care.