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Heavy Metals Application and Plant Uptake in a Land Disposal System for Waste Water¹

ABSTRACT

Municipal sewage effluent with sludge injected and effluent alone were spray-irrigated on reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.) and corn (Zea mays L.), respectively. In the maximum level (10 cm/week) reed canarygrass treatment, application rates for Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb were 15.5, 25.5, 0.162, and 9.1 kg/ha in 1972 and 7.7, 13.2, 0.135, and 7.8 kg/ha in 1973. Rates of application for Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb in the maximum level (7.5 cm/week) cornfield treatment were 0.6, 2.0, 0.029, and 1.1 kg/ha in 1972 and 0.6, 2.4, 0.032, and 2.4 kg/ha in 1973. Reed canarygrass was irrigated year-round, while corn was irrigated only during the growing season. Copper and Zn concentrations and total uptake in the treated reed canarygrass area were generally higher than in the control for all cuttings of 1972 and 1973. Total uptake of heavy metals in the corn area control was usually as high or higher than in the treated areas. Copper and Zn concentrations and uptake in the effluent irrigated corn area were lower than in the treated reed canarygrass area. Data show a relative exclusion of Cd by Zn in the plant material, since Cd/Zn ratios in the harvested crops are lower than in either the applied waste water or the 0.1N HCl extractable fraction of the treated soils. Accumulation of applied heavy metals in the treated soils was > 93% of the amounts applied in 1972 and 1973 for all heavy metals in the reed canarygrass area and slightly less in the corn area.

Key Words: sewage effluent • sludge • cadmium-zinc ratio • accumulation index

¹ Contribution from the Pennsylvania State Univ. Agric. Exp. Sta. and Inst. for Res. on Land and Water Resour., The Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA 16802. Authorized for publication on 14 Apr. 1975 as Journal Series No. 4845 in the Pennsylvania Agric. Exp. Sta.

² Research Assistants and Professor of Soil Physics respectively, Dep. of Agronomy, The Pennsylvania State Univ.

Received for publication April 28, 1975.