Effects of Industrial Emissions on Vegetal Growth and Soil

Abstract

There are number of chemical producing units in and around the District Lahore which throw a large number of chemical effluents in the environment. These chemicals in the agricultural area are ultimately have affected and contaminated the crop as well as soil. A pot experiment was conducted with rice and grass grown on normal agricultural and contaminated soils to evaluate the effect of the effluents on soil and plant growth. The contaminated soil exercised important (p?0.03) negative effects on the growth, straw yield and nutrition of rice and grass grown on it. The more reduction (reduction over control, ROC: 55 to 67% for rice and 30 to 68% for grass) of straw dry matter yields of rice at different stages was determined as compared to grass grown on contaminated soil. The contents of N, P and K in the rice plants grown on the contaminated soil were decreased by 28, 32 and 65%, respectively. While increased (increase over normal agricultural soil, i.e. control: IOC) S and Na contents in rice by 55 and 1010% but decreased the S and Na contents in grass by 200 and 114%, respectively. Available N was determined 12 to 22 times higher in normal agricultural soil, while available S content was obtained 3 to 5 times higher in contaminated soil at different time of sampling. Type of crop showed no influence on N, P and S status of the soils.

Key words: industrial effluents, growth and yield, nutrition of rice and grass, soil properties.