The Influence of Lead on Seedling Growth of Wheat (Triticum Aestivum L.)

Abstract

The concentration of heavy metals such as lead (Pb) in the environment has been increased due to automobiles, industries, agro chemicals and anthropogenic activities and responsible for limiting the crop yield. The effects of different concentrations (0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 ppm) of lead on seedling growth performance of wheat (Triticum aestivum) were recorded. Lead treatment in the form of lead acetate at 100 ppm highly affected seedling growth and biomass production of T. aestivum as compared to control. Lead treatment at 40 ppm concentration produced significant (p<0.05) reduction in shoot length. Root growth is an important growth variable and found greatly reduced at different concentrations of lead treatment. The results also showed that lead treatment at 20 ppm produced significant effect on shoot length and number of leaves, leaf area of T. aestivum.  The treatment of lead at 20 ppm produced significant (p<0.05) reduction on seedling dry weight of T. aestivum as compared to control.

The seedlings of T. aestivum were also tested for percentage of tolerance to lead. The results showed that T. aestivum has high tolerance to lead at 20 ppm (90.26 %) and lowest at 100 ppm (62.36 %) of lead. T. aestivum seedlings showed better percentage of tolerance (80.81 %) to lead at 60 ppm.

Keywords: Germination, growth, lead, specific leaf area, tolerance, wheat, toxicity.