New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts
The effect of ryegrass variety on trace metal uptake
Colin W. Gray*
Ronald G. McLaren
Agriculture and Life Sciences Division
Lincoln University
P.O. Box 84
Canterbury, New Zealand
*Present address: Agriculture and Environment Division, Rothamsted
Research, Harpenden, Herts AL52JQ, UK.
Abstract Trace metal deficiencies in soils can
have adverse effects on plant production and animal health. Conversely,
trace metals at elevated concentrations in soils can be phytotoxic. The
exploitation of intraspecies variation in plant trace metal
accumulation may be one way to manage both trace metal deficiency and
phytotoxicity that can occur in some soils. An investigation was
undertaken to determine the variation in Co, Cd, Ni, Cu, Zn, Mn, and Fe
uptake in different ryegrass varieties. Eleven different ryegrass
varieties were grown in a glasshouse experiment on two soils that
contained elevated or background metal concentrations. We found that
there was up to a 2.5-fold range in trace metal concentrations between
ryegrass varieties grown on the contaminated soil, with the short
rotation/annual ryegrass varieties, i.e., ‘Flanker’, ‘Tabu’, and
‘Archie’, generally accumulating significantly smaller amounts of Cd,
Zn, Ni, Mn, and Co than the other varieties tested. Metal uptake in the
uncontaminated soil indicated much smaller differences between
varieties. Dilution effects could in part explain the differences in
metal concentrations between varieties for the contaminated soil,
however there were no relationships between yields and trace metal
concentrations for uncontaminated soil. It appears that there may be
potential for selecting ryegrass varieties for the management of trace
metal uptake in pasture soils, however further evaluation of results in
field trials is required.
Keywords ryegrass; trace metals; variety
A04021; Received 29 March 2004; accepted 17 December 2004; Online
publication date 30 May 2005
New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2005, Vol. 48:
285–292
0028–8233/05/4802–0285 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2005
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