Bioaccumulation of cadmium by spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and its effect on selected physiological and morphological parameters

Heavy metals and other toxic elements in the environment, mainly located in soil and groundwater, have a significant effect on plant and its productivity that has a huge attention in recent years. Accumulation of heavy metals in soil cause toxicity to plants, and contaminate the food chain. The industrial areas, as well as developing countries have been contaminated with high concentration of heavy metals. Main sources of contamination are mining and other industrial processes, as well as military and or lanfills, sludge dumps or waste disposal sites. The heavy metals are very dangerous to environment and pose serious danger to public health by entering throught the food chain or into drinking water. Phytoextraction is one way how to remove the contaminants from soil by plants. Phytoextraction of heavy metals is a technology that has been studied for several years. It is more ecological and cheaper way how to clean our environment.Several plant species are known becauce they hyperaccumulate a high contents of metals from the soil. The accumulators are mainly herbaceous species, crops and nowadays angiosperm trees with a high growth such as poplars or willows. We have focused on the determination of some morphological (lenght and weight of roots and biomass) and physiological (contents of dry mass and number of lief stomata) characteristics and the determination of the bioaccumulation factor and the translocation factor of cadmium by spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Imprints of leaves were evaluated using an optical microscope Axiostar Plus, Carl Zeiss, lens CP Achromat 40x/0.65, eyepiece PI 10x / 18, Canon Utilities Software Zoom Browser EX 4.6 and hardware Acer Travel Mate 4600, Canon Power Shot A95. The density of stomata was evaluated on an area of 1 mm2. Samples of the dried plants (leaves and roots) were mineralized by acid digestion using microwave digestion device MARS X - press 5. The end of determination to obtain the cadmium content was performed by atomic absorption spectrometer Varian 240 Z with GTA120 graphite furnace. The effect of contamination by cadmium to germination, length of leaves and number of stomata on abaxial side of leaf was confirmed. The contaminated soil by cadmium does not pose a risk of heavy metal entry into the feed and food chain by spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.).