Influence of soil amendment on cadmium accumulation responses in one-year old Populus alba L. seedling

Anthropogenic sources of cadmium in soils, and in particular in arable soils are of great concerns. Phytoremediation is a simple, cost-effective and environmental friendly technique to clean up the contaminated environment. In this research, the influence of soil amendment on accumulation of cadmium by one-year old Populus alba L. seedling was investigated. CdCl2,2.5H2O salt were spiked to three prepared substrates and mixed homogenously. The experiment was carried out in a factorial experimental design with complete random design with three replicates. At the end of summer, the amounts of cadmium accumulation in leaves, shoots and roots were measured. The results indicated that higher biomass productions in amended substrates compared to control led to increase of total cadmium uptake two times more than that in control substrate at 150 mg kg-1 cadmium supply, although in some cases, there was no significant difference in cadmium accumulations among substrates (P<0.01). Using synthetic chelating agents in order to enhance phytoremediation leads to increases of the environmental impacts while they are not expected when close-to-nature approaches are applied.