Acute Phytotoxicity Bioassay (APB) application on PAH contaminated soil

This paper describes experiments for the standardization of a seed germination/root elongation as Acute Phytotoxicity Bioassay (APB) applied to PAH contaminated soil. Ten different seed species were tested on artificially contaminated soil: Carrot, Cucumber, Garden cress, Lettuce, Marrow squash, Radish, Soybean, Tomato (Dicotyledons), Onion, Perennial ryegrass (Monocotyledons). Among these species six seeds were selected using the following criteria: rapid growth, easy reading of the length, % of germination superior to 80% and good reproducibility of parameters. The evaluated parameters were: the number of germinated seeds in each dish, the length of hypocotyl and root and the Germination Index % (GI%). Anthracene, fluoranthene, naphthalene, phenanthrene and pyrene, at a concentration of 1000 ppm, were tested as PAH. Since all the seeds have shown a great sensitivity to naphthalene, a range-finding test (from 1000 to 0.1 ppm) was carried out. The most sensitive seed resulted to be Garden cress, while the least is the Cucumber, all the others presented almost the same sensitivity.