Abstract
Globally, various types of soil amendments have been used to improve the fertility and quality of soils in agricultural lands. In heavy metal(loid) (HM)-contaminated land, the soil amendments can also act as an immobilizing agent, thereby detoxifying HMs. A pot experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of three different complex amendments, including T1 (gypsum + peat moss + steel slag; GPMSS), T2 (GPMSS + lime), and T3 (GPMSS + lime + sulfate), on biogeochemical properties of the HM-contaminated arable soils, including Soil A and Soil B, and the magnitude of HM uptake by Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L.) for 6 weeks. All the examined complex amendments improved soils’ physical and biological properties by increasing the water-stable aggregate (WSA) ratio by 18–54% and dehydrogenase activity (DHA) by 300–1333 mg triphenyl formazan (TPF) kg−1 24 h−1 in comparison to control soils. The concentrations of HMs accumulated in B. rapa appeared to decrease tremendously, attributed to effectively immobilizing the HMs in soils by incorporating complex amendments mediated by soil pH, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and complexation with the components of amendments. All these positive changes in soil properties resulted in the elevation of B. rapa productivity. For instance, T1 treatment induced an increase of plant dry weight (DW) by 3.7–3.9 times compared to the controls. Suppose there are no typical differences in the efficiency among the treatments. In that case, our findings still suggest that using complex amendments for the HM-contaminated arable soils would be beneficial by bringing a synergetic effect on improving soil biogeochemical properties and alleviating HM toxicity, which eventually can enhance plant growth performance.
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This study was supported by the 2021 Post-Doc Development Program of Gyeongsang National University and also by the National Research Foundation of Korean grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (No. 2020R1A2C1003750).
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Conceptualization: Young-Nam Kim, Keum-Ah Lee, Kwon-Rae Kim; methodology: Keum-Ah Lee, Mina Lee, Kwon-Rae Kim; formal analysis and investigation: Keum-Ah Lee, Mina Lee; data analysis and curation: Young-Nam Kim, Keum-Ah Lee, Kwon-Rae Kim; writing — original draft preparation: Keum-Ah Lee; writing — review and editing: Young-Nam Kim, Kwon-Rae Kim; funding acquisition: Kwon-Rae Kim; supervision: Kwon-Rae Kim.
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Kim, YN., Lee, KA., Lee, M. et al. Synergetic effect of complex soil amendments to improve soil quality and alleviate toxicity of heavy metal(loid)s in contaminated arable soil: toward securing crop food safety and productivity. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 87555–87567 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21752-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21752-3