Abstract

Leafy vegetables are a food crop with higher protein and are also important source of minerals which are essential for good health. Due to the large consumption, it is necessary to decrease the arsenic (As) concentration in leafy vegetable to avoid the potential risk to human health. The current study is aimed at assessing arsenic (As) accumulation ability and identification of cultivars with less As concentration that could be grown in As contaminated farmland for food safety. A set of thirty two leafy vegetable cultivars from 5 species were compared in hydroponics for 2 weeks having moderate level of 0- control and 6 mg As L^-1. At harvest, plants were sampled and analyzed for As concentration. Significant genotypic variations were observed in the shoots As concentration, translocation and bioaccumulation factors revealing more than 8 and 25 times cultivar differences in shoot As concentration, and in translocation factors respectively. This result revealed that As concentration in shoot was in part governed by the greater ability of root-shoot translocation. Cultivar Sijibaiye (SJBY) had the lowest shoot As concentration while the highest was detected in Dayekongxincai (DYKXC). The average As concentration in roots were found to be ten to twenty times higher than those observed in shoots, indicating that there is restricted transport of As from the root system to the shoot of cultivars. Therefore, it has been suggested that there is possibility to lower the As concentration in leafy vegetables by selecting and breeding cultivars with less As concentration that can be safely grown in contaminated soils with the slight and moderate levels of As for safe consumption.

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