The content of mercury in various types of cereals that were grown in the model conditions

<table style="height: 577px;" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="664" align="left"><tbody><tr><td height="577" align="left" valign="top"><p>The consumption of cereals in Slovakia but also worldwide is increasing by every year. From 30000 to 50000 tons of mercury circulates throught the biosphere that gets into the atmosphere degassing of the earth's crust and world oceans. Mercury affects CNS and causes its disorders. The high doses of mercury causes a lot of different changes of personality as well as increased agitation, memory lossorinsomnia. It can also affect other organ systems such as the kidney. The exposure level is reflected in the concentration of mercury in blood and urine. The aim of our work was the evaluation of transfer of mercury from sludge to edible part of chosen cereals. The objectives were achieved in simulated conditions of growing pot experiment. We used agricultural soil from the location of V&yacute;čapy - Opatovce for the realization of the experiment. The sludge, which was added atvarious doses, was taken from Central Spi&scaron; area from locality of Rudňany near the village where minedironore that contains mainly copperand mercury during last few decades was. We used three types of cereals: barley (<em>Hordeum sativum L.</em>) variety PRESTIGE, spring wheat (<em>Triticum aestivum L.</em>) variety ISJARISSA and oat (<em>Avena sativa L.</em>) variety TATRAN. The length of growing season was 90 days. From the obtained results of two years can be concluded that the accumulation of mercury by seed follows wheat ˂ barley ˂ oat. Even though that the oat is characterized by the highest accumulation of mercuryin the seeds, the content did not exceed the maximum level sspecified by The Codex Alimentarius of Slovak Republic. The results shows that the suitable cultivation of the cereals in localities, which are contaminated with heavy metals, especially by mercury, that the high content of mercury in soil do not pose a risk of accumulation of the metal into the cereal grain.</p></td></tr></tbody></table> <!--[endif] -->