PLANT FE, AL AND CR CONCENTRATIONS IN VEGETABLES AS INFLUENCED BY SOIL INCLUSION

Abstract

ABSTRACT Soil entrapment by plant tissue is often ignored when the tissue is analyzed. This leads to errors in interpretation of results. Plant tissue samples were taken from vegetables grown in experimental field plots in Norfolk, VA, Riverhead, NY, and Geneva, NY. At harvest, plant tissues were washed with deionized water, cut into small pieces, oven dried (VA) or freeze dried (NY), ground to pass a 0.0841‐cm stainless steel screen and stored in glass bottles. The surface 15 cm of each soil was sampled. Subportions of tissue and soil were analyzed for a number of elements by inductively coupled argon plamsa emission spectrometry (ICP‐ES) and electrothermal atomic absorption (ETAA). Titanium (Ti) concentrations in the soil and plant tissue were used as a measure of soil inclusion. As much as 76% of the Al, 100% of the Cr, and 70% of the Fe in the vegetable samples could be accounted for by soil particulate inclusion by the plant tissue during its growth.