Luffa cylindrica Intercropping with Semen cassiae-A Production Practice of Improving Land Use in Soil Contaminated with Arsenic

Weizhen Chen; Yanan Yang; Dele Meng; Jidong Ying; Huiyin Huang; Huashou Li

doi:10.3390/plants11233398

Luffa cylindrica Intercropping with Semen cassiae-A Production Practice of Improving Land Use in Soil Contaminated with Arsenic

Plants (Basel). 2022 Dec 6;11(23):3398. doi: 10.3390/plants11233398.

Authors

Weizhen Chen^{1

2}, Yanan Yang^{1

2}, Dele Meng^{1

2}, Jidong Ying^{1

2}, Huiyin Huang^{1

2}, Huashou Li^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ College of Natural Resources and Environment, South China Agricultural University Guangzhou, Guangzhou 510642, China.
² Guangdong Engineering Research Center for Modern Eco-Agriculture and Circular Agriculture, Guangzhou 510642, China.

Abstract

In recent years, research on the safe utilization and green remediation of contaminated soil by intercropping has become common. In this study, the growth of an intercropping system of Luffa cylindrica-Semen cassiae in soil contaminated with medium amounts of arsenic (As) was studied using field (91.60 mg kg^-1) and pot (83.34 mg kg^-1) experiments. The field experiments showed that intercropping significantly increased the yield per plant of L. cylindrica by 27.36%, while the yield per plant of S. cassiae decreased by 21.66%; however, this difference was not significant. Intercropping reduced the concentration of As in all organs of L. cylindrica but increased the concentration of As in all parts of S. cassiae. The accumulation of As per plant of L. cylindrica was reduced by 20.72%, while that in a single plant of S. cassiae was increased by 201.93%. In addition, the concentration of As in the fruit of these two crops in these two planting modes was low enough to meet the National Food Safety Standard of China (GB2762-2017). In addition, the land equivalent ratio and As metal removal equivalent ratio of the intercropping mode was 1.03 and 2.34, indicating that the intercropping mode had advantages in land use and As removal. In the pot experiment, the biomass and As concentration of L. cylindrica and S. cassiae were roughly consistent with those in the field experiment. During the sampling period, intercropping reduced the concentration of As in the rhizosphere soil solution of L. cylindrica by 3.1-23.77%, while it increased the concentration of As in the rhizosphere soil solution of S. cassiae by 13.30-59.40%. The changes in pH and redox potential were also closely related to the content of water-soluble As in the rhizosphere environment, which affects the absorption of As by plants. In general, the L. cylindrica-S. cassiae intercropping system is a planting mode that can effectively treat soil that is moderately contaminated with As and remove it from the soil to an extent.

Keywords: Arsenic; L. cylindrica; S. cassiae; intercropping; safe production.

Abstract

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