Vol. 10, Issue 11 (2021)

Author(s):
R Suganthi, S Avudainayagam, V Davamani, K Sara Parwin Banu, CN Chandrasekar and U Sivakumar

Abstract:
Heavy metals entry into the environment arises as a critical concern which posed major threat against human health and food safety. In a pot culture experiment, Indian mustard and Boston fern were grown in mercury spiked soil with different concentration variants of mercury with the objective of assessing the influence of different treatments on mercury tolerance of Indian mustard and Boston fern on soil available nitrogen, soil available phosphorous, soil available potassium and its correlation ship with soil mercury. Soil without mercury served as control for both tested plants. Our results indicated that nutrient content at different mercury concentration exhibited insignificant difference (p>0.05) compared to control. A significant difference (p< 0.05) was observed after 45 days of mercury treatment in soil available nitrogen. Maximum relative change of 6.06 and 5.85 per cent was observed in soil available nitrogen content of 20 mg kg^-1 treated soil of Indian Mustard and 10 mg kg^-1 treated soil of Boston fern, respectively. Parallel changes were recorded in phosphorous and potassium content. Plant response towards mercury contamination altered with growth period and the nutrient content tends to descend due to their mineralization and plant uptake.