Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:09:21.628Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The effect of liming on heavy metal concentrations in wheat, carrots and spinach grown on previously sludge-applied soils

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

P. S. Hooda  and
B. J. Alloway
P. S. Hooda
Affiliation:
Environmental Science Unit, Geography Department, Queen Mary & Westfield College, London University, Mile End Road, London El 4NS, UK
B. J. Alloway
Affiliation:
Department of Soil Science, The University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 233, Reading RG6 6DW, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Liming is often recommended to minimize the plant uptake of potentially toxic elements from sludgeamended soils. In outdoor experiments conducted during 1989–91 in a rural location, near Brentwood (UK), wheat, carrots and spinach were grown on soils from a wide range of sites previously amended with heavy applications of sewage sludge. The objective of these studies was to examine the effect of liming on the accumulation of sludge-borne metals in the crop plants. The results showed that liming the soils to pH 7 prior to sowing significantly reduced metal concentrations in carrots and spinach, although the reduction appeared to be greater for Cd, Ni and Zn than for Cu and Pb. The wheat crop was grown on soils which had been limed 2 years previously, and the average pH of these soils was 6·5 compared to a pH value of 5·95 in the unlimed soils. This comparatively small pH difference between limed and unlimed soils (6·50–5·95) generally had little influence on metal contents in wheat.

These results suggested that maintaining the soil at pH 7 is better than pH 6·5 for minimizing the accumulation of potentially toxic elements from soils which have received relatively high levels of sludge application over many years. The data for winter wheat suggested either that metal uptake into the grain was not sensitive to differences in soil pH or that a relatively small residual effect of past liming was not high enough to reduce metal uptake.

Type
Crops and Soils
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 127 , Issue 3 , November 1996 , pp. 289 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Avery, B. W. & Bascomb, C. L. (Eds) (1974). Soil Survey Laboratory Methods: Technical Monograph No. 6. Harpenden, UK: Soil Survey of England and Wales.Google Scholar
Chaney, R. L. (1988). Effective utilization of sewage sludge on cropland in the United States and toxicological considerations for land application. In Proceedings of Second International Symposium on Land Application of Sewage Sludge, pp. 77–105. Tokyo: Association for the Utilization of Sewage Sludge.Google Scholar
Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) (1980). Sewage Sludge Application on Agricultural Soils: Effects of Annual and Cumulative Additions of Cadmium and Zinc on Plants. Report No. 83. Ames, Iowa: Council for Agricultural Science and Technology.Google Scholar
Day, P. R. (1965). Particle fractionation and particle size analysis. In Methods of Soil Analysis, Part I (Ed. Black, C. A.), pp. 545–567. Madison, Wisconsin: American Society of Agronomy.Google Scholar
Department of the Environment (DoE) (1989). Code of Practice for Agricultural Use of Sewage Sludge. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Eriksson, J. E. (1989). The influence of pH, soil type and time on adsorption and uptake by plants of Cd added to soils. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 48, 317–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heckman, J. R., Angle, J. S. & Chaney, R. L. (1987). Residual effects of sewage sludge on soybean: I. Accumulation of heavy metals. Journal of Environmental Quality 16, 113–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hemphill, D. D. Jr, Jackson, T. L., Martin, L. W., Kiemnec, G. L., Hanson, D. & Volk, V. V. (1982). Sweet corn response to application of three sewage sludges. Journal of Environmental Quality 11, 191–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooda, P. S. & Alloway, B. J. (1993). Effects of time and temperature on the bioavailability of Cd and Pb from sludge-amended soils. Journal of Soil Science 44, 97–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, A. P. & Alloway, B. J. (1991). The bioavailability of cadmium to lettuce and cabbage in soils previously treated with sewage sludges. Plant and Soil 132, 179–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiekens, L. (1984). Behaviour of heavy metals in soils. In Utilization of Sewage Sludge on Land (Eds Berglund, S., Davis, R. D. & L'Hermite, P.), pp. 126–134. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Kuo, S., Jellum, E. J. & Baker, A. S. (1985). Effects of soil type, liming and sludge application on zinc and cadmium availability to Swiss chard. Soil Science 139, 122–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lübben, S. & Sauerbeck, D. R. (1991). The uptake and distribution of heavy metals by spring wheat. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 56–57, 239–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) (1993). Code of Good Agricultural Practice for the Protection of Soil. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Page, A. L., Logan, T. J. & Ryan, J. A. (Eds) (1987). Land Application of Sludge: Food Chain Implications. Michigan, USA: Lewis Publishers Inc.Google Scholar
Pepper, I. L., Bezdicek, D. F., Baker, A. S. & Sims, J. M. (1983). Silage corn uptake of sludge-applied zinc and cadmium as affected by soil pH. Journal of Environmental Quality 12, 270–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S. R. (1994). Effect of soil pH on the availability to crops of metals in sewage sludge-treated soils. II. Cadmium uptake by crops and implications for human dietary intake. Environmental Pollution 86, 5–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walsh, J. N. & Howie, R. A. (1980). An evaluation of the nineperformance of an inductively coupled plasma source spectrometer for the determination of the major and minor trace constituents of silicate rocks and minerals. Mineralogical Magazine 43, 967–974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, D. E., Vlamis, J., Pukite, A. H. & Corey, J. E. (1987). Metal movement in sludge-amended soils: a nine-year study. Soil Science 143, 124–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar