Investigation of Heavy Metals Pollution Lead, Chromium and Cadmium under Different Land Use at Soil and Saffron Plant (Case Study: Ferdows)

Increasing the concentration of different heavy metals, such as lead, copper, cadmium in water, soil and air can pose negative effects on the entire ecosystem and cause harmful health consequences for all forms of life. The major sources of the pollution are chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In order to investigate the contamination of heavy metals such as lead, chromium and cadmium in soil and areal part of saffron plant in Ferdows farms, a completely randomized design was used in autumn 2016. Firstly, the sampling of soil and plants from 4 different stations was done (1-farms nearby residential areas 2-farms in residential areas 3-farms near the road 4-farms without specific use) with 3 replications, it should be noted that from each station 5 subsamples were taken and then mixed. Soil sampling was done at 0-30 and 30-60 cm depths, and the sampling of the plant was randomly taken from three parts of petals, flags and brunette. A total of 24 soil samples and 36 samples from different parts of the saffron plant were transferred to the laboratory. After preparation of the samples, acid digestion was performed for measured by the atomic absorption system. The results showed that the highest mean of the heavy metals concentration in the soil was for chromium (80.64 ± 8.03mg/kg), lead (42.36 ± 3.19mg/kg) and then cadmium (0.9±0.14mg/kg). The significant difference between the different parts of the saffron plant for chromium and copper (Pvalue >0.05) were not observed, however, there was a significant difference for cadmium at 5% level that the highest concentration was for flag 1.08 mg/kg. The highest levels of chromium, lead and the roads observed cadmium in the out of residential areas and the lowest amount of chromium, lead and cadmium were observed by the roads.