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Effects of high dose copper on plant growth and mineral nutrient (Zn, Fe, Mg, K, Ca) uptake in spinach

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Abstract

Loessal soil is one of the main cultivated soils in northwest China. Part of its distribution area was irrigated with industrial wastewater in past three decades. This caused heavy metal contamination in the soil. It had induced toxicity on crops and also threatened local human health for now. Based on a field plot experiment, effects of different Cu concentrations (from 45 to 2000 mg kg−1) in loessal soil on spinach plant growth and uptake of mineral nutrients (Zn, Fe, Mg, K, and Ca) by spinach were investigated. The Cu addition increased available concentrations of mineral nutrients in loessal soil and concentrations of Cu, Zn, Mg, and Ca in roots. The translocation of mineral nutrients from roots to leaves was inhibited under Cu addition, inducing their decrease in leaves. The EC10 and EC50 of soil Cu in relative dry weights of leaves were 240.33 mg kg−1 and 1205.04 mg kg−1, respectively. The PLS-PM analysis showed that available concentrations of nutrients in soil were only affected by Cu in soil positively, nutrients in roots were mainly affected by Cu in soil and Cu in leaves positively, nutrients in leaves were mainly affected by Cu in roots negatively, translocation of nutrients in spinach and plant growth were principally affected by Cu in leaves negatively, and the total effect of Cu in leaves on nutrients in roots and leaves, translocation of nutrients in spinach, and plant growth was the highest. Our results indicated that the phytotoxicity of Cu including spinach growth inhibition and mineral disorder in spinach was mainly affected by the Cu concentrations in leaves.

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Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for cooperation of Lanzhou Meteorological Administration, as well as Xicheng Liu and Junming Bai for assistance with field management of spinach growth.

Funding

This work was supported by the PhD scientific research start-up capital of Lanzhou City University (LZCU-BS2018-15), Gansu Natural Science Foundation (18JR3RA220), and Open fund project of Kay Laboratory of Polymer Materials of Ministry of Education of Ecological Environment (KF-18-04).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gansu Provincial Key Discipline “Analysis and Treatment of Regional Typical Environmental Pollutants,” School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou City University, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Zheng Liu, Lixia Luo, Jundi Wan, Wei Wang & Guohu Zhao

  2. Provincial Key Laboratory of Gansu Higher Education for City Environmental Pollution Control, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou City University, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Zheng Liu, Lixia Luo, Jundi Wan, Wei Wang & Guohu Zhao

  3. Gansu Academy of Environmental Science, Lanzhou, 730030, China

    Ying Bai

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  1. Zheng Liu
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  5. Wei Wang
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Contributions

Zheng Liu: Conceptualization; Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing-original draft, Writing-review and editing. Ying Bai: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation. Lixia Luo: Data curation, Investigation. Jundi Wan: Data curation, Investigation. Wei Wang: Data curation, Investigation. Guohu Zhao: Funding acquisition, Investigation.

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Correspondence to Zheng Liu.

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Liu, Z., Bai, Y., Luo, L. et al. Effects of high dose copper on plant growth and mineral nutrient (Zn, Fe, Mg, K, Ca) uptake in spinach. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 37471–37481 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13395-7

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