Abstract
The influence of soil characteristics on the lability and bioavailability of zinc at both background and phytotoxic concentrations in Albic Retisol soil (Loamic, Ochric) was studied using various methods. Ranges of insufficient, non-phytotoxic, and phytotoxic zinc concentrations in soil solutions were established in an experiment with an aqueous barley culture. It was experimentally revealed that for a wide range of non-toxic concentrations of Zn in the soil corresponding to the indicative type of plant response, there was constancy of the concentration ratio (CR) and concentration factor (CF) migration parameters. As a result, a new method for assessing the buffer capacity of soils with respect to Zn (PBCZn) is proposed. The transformation processes of the chemical forms and root uptake of native (natural) zinc contained in the Albic Retisol (Loamic, Ochric) through the aqueous culture of barley were studied using a cyclic lysimetric installation and radioactive 65Zn tracer. The distribution patterns of Zn(65Zn) between different forms (chemical fractions) in the soil were established using the sequential fractionation scheme of BCR. The coefficients of distribution and concentration factors of natural Zn and 65Zn, as well as accumulation and removal of the metal by plants were estimated. The values of the enrichment factor of natural (stable) Zn contained in sequentially extracted chemical fractions with the 65Zn radioisotope were determined and the amount of the pool of labile zinc compounds in the studied soil was calculated.
Highlights
Increases in the concentrations of heavy metals (HMs) in soils as a result of technogenic pollution lead to negative effects in agricultural ecosystems such as crop losses, deterioration in the quality of agricultural products, and decreases in soil microbiological activity
More interesting is the behavior of zinc—one of the most important trace elements for living organisms and the most common pollutant –when it enters soil in increased quantities [33]
A total content of zinc in the soil were determined in the samples (Table 1).Because the soil did not contain carbonates, the results obtained for the exchange of Ca2+ and Mg2+ (5.20 ± 0.06 and 0.40 ± 0.09 cmol(+) kg−1, respectively) with the use of AAB-4.8 as an extractant did not significantly differ from the results obtained using neutral salts as extractants: 1 M NH4 Cl (5.70 ± 0.68 and 0.53 ± 0.05 cmol(+) kg−1 ) and AAB-7.0 (5.21 ± 0.08 and 0.47 ± 0.10 cmol(+) kg−1 )
Summary
Increases in the concentrations of heavy metals (HMs) in soils as a result of technogenic pollution lead to negative effects in agricultural ecosystems such as crop losses, deterioration in the quality of agricultural products, and decreases in soil microbiological activity. Zinc deficiency is often caused by the low metal content in the soil and by the influence of the type of soil that determines its availability to plants. Zn deficiency has been observed in significant amounts of soil in Bangladesh, Brazil, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sudan, sub-Saharan Africa, India, Turkey, Western Australia, and China, as well as on the Great Plains and in the western regions of the United States [2,6]
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