Managing cadmium in agricultural systems

Reduced root mycorrhizal colonization as affected by phosphorus fertilization is responsible for high cadmium accumulation in wheat

“…There are various geogenic and anthropogenic factors affecting Cd abundance in soil and plants. Important anthropogenic Cd sources include mining activities, atmospheric deposition, industrial processes and use of phosphorus (P) fertilizers (McLaughlin et al 1999(McLaughlin et al , 2021Kubier et al 2019). There are several soil and crop management factors that also have a significant impact on solubility of Cd in soil and root uptake such as soil pH, cropping systems, liming, soil salinity, phytoavailability of Zn in soil, the levels of nitrogen and P fertilization and plant genotype (Mench 1998;Sheppard et al 2009;McLaughlin et al 2021).…”

“…Important anthropogenic Cd sources include mining activities, atmospheric deposition, industrial processes and use of phosphorus (P) fertilizers (McLaughlin et al 1999(McLaughlin et al , 2021Kubier et al 2019). There are several soil and crop management factors that also have a significant impact on solubility of Cd in soil and root uptake such as soil pH, cropping systems, liming, soil salinity, phytoavailability of Zn in soil, the levels of nitrogen and P fertilization and plant genotype (Mench 1998;Sheppard et al 2009;McLaughlin et al 2021). It is commonly observed that the soil Cd concentration shows a poor association with the plant Cd concentration in several crops such as wheat, potato and rice (McLaughlin et al 1997;Li and Zhou 2019;Gray et al 2019).…”

Prediction of soil solution concentrations and leaching losses of cadmium in agricultural soils

“…It is also important to determine how well Cd leaching fluxes calculated using soil solution Cd concentrations predicted using these empirical models compare to Cd leaching fluxes measured under field conditions. This is challenging because of a lack of accurate information on measured Cd leaching fluxes from agricultural soils (McLaughlin et al, 2021;Sterckeman et al, 2018). Nonetheless, there are some data available from European trials that have used wick lysimeters (Filipović et al, 2016;Imseng et al, 2018) or suction cups (Bengtsson et al, 2006) to measure annual Cd leaching fluxes, along with data from several trials from New Zealand that used barrel lysimeters (Gray et al, 2021;Gray et al, 2003;McLaren et al, 2004), wick lysimeters (Gray, 2021), or hydrologically isolated field plots (Gray et al, 2017).…”

“…There will always be some uncertainty in a soil solution Cd concentration that has been predicted using topsoil properties, that is in equilibrium with the solid phase in the topsoil, to accurately reflect Cd concentrations in drainage water. This is because soluble Cd concentrations have been shown to vary significantly over the drainage season (Degryse & Smolders, 2006;Bengtsson et al, 2006) and with the depth drainage water is being sampled, as Cd leaching tends to decrease with soil depth (McLaughlin et al, 2021). Further, depending on the soil type, Cd transport like other solutes can be subject to a range of physical and chemical nonequilibrium conditions that can influence the Cd concentration in drainage water (Garrido et al, 2008).…”

“…It is recognized that one of the challenges of using Cd balance models to determine the rate of Cd accumulation in agricultural soils is how to accurately account for Cd loss via leaching (McLaughlin et al, 2021;Sterckeman et al, 2018). Most Cd balance models estimate Cd leaching losses (g ha −1 yr −1 ) from soil using the annual drainage flux (mm yr −1 ) of water (sometimes referred to as the precipitation excess) leaving the topsoil or cultivated depth, multiplied by an estimate of the soil solution Cd concentration (De Vries & McLaughlin, 2013;Eggen et al, 2019;Keller & Schulin, 2003;Römkens et al, 2018;Salo et al, 2018;Sheppard et al, 2009;Six & Smolders, 2014;Sterckeman et al, 2018).…”