ROLE OF EDTA IN LEAD MOBILIZATION AND ITS UPTAKE BY MAIZE GROWN ON AN ARTIFICIAL Pb-POLLUTED SOIL

Soil pollution with heavy metals is a serious issue worldwide. Metal pollution has serious implications for the human health and environment. Phytoremediation is considered an economical and environmentally friendly method of exploiting plants to extract contaminants from soil. The purpose of this paper is to study the maize seedling, growing and behaviour in a soil polluted with heavy metals. Maize is known from literature as lead accumulators in artificially polluted soil with 1000, 2000 and 3000 mg/kg Pb of soil and in the presence of different treatments with EDTA as the mobilization agent. This means that the treatment for phytoextraction ( Pb concentration, EDTA concentration) is expressed in the biomass. From the statistical calculation it results that in the variant with 1000 mg Pb/kg soil + ratio EDTA/Pb = 0.5 have no significant decrease in leaf weight. In conclusion, EDTA application does not influence hyperaccumulation. The toxicity of 3000 mg Pb/kg is too high and the plant does not tolerate this toxicity. Another ligand/lead ratio has to be chosen and other solutions are sought to stimulate plant growth and increase the accumulation of metals in the plant.