Effects of some Abiotic Factors on Brassica Oleracea Var. Capitata Sprouts

  • Antoanela PATRAS
  • Camelia Elena LUCHIAN
  • Marius NICULAUA
  • Vasile STOLERU
Keywords: salt stress, heavy metals, sprouts, white cabbage

Abstract

Nowadays there is a continuous increase of sprouts consumption. The white cabbage is known as a resistant plant at different abiotic factors. It has the capacity to accumulate heavy metals without visible phytotoxicity symptoms, when the concentration is not excessively high.

The morphological and biochemical modifications induced in cabbage sprouts by two heavy metals (Cu and Mn) were analysed comparing with the effects of salt stress. The metal accumulation in sprouts was measured, because over a certain level, it may become dangerous for the consumers health.

The sprouts were grown in a germinator in specific conditions for 10 days, in the presence of CuCl2, MnCl2, NaCl or water respectively. For each treatment, we used 3 concentrations. It was analyzed the accumulation of each metal in the cabbage sprouts (by AAS method), the influence of each metal concentration on the seeds germination and on the sprouts growth (by biological determination) and photosynthetic pigments concentration (by spectrophotometric method).

The treatment with Mn and Na at the studied concentrations is not inhibiting the sprouts growth (only Cu does) and is not inducing phytotoxicity symptoms (contrary, is stimulating the growth in some cases), but the accumulation of the heavy metals in sprouts is significant and may become dangerous for the consumer health, if the quantity of the ingested sprouts is important.

Published
2013-11-21