Soil fertility influence on¹³⁷Cs and⁹⁰Sr transfer to the crops

Abstract

The radionuclide uptake by crops strongly depends on soil fertility and biological features of plants. The sou" reac tion, humus content, calcium, magnesium and potassium status are the most important soil properties, which determine ra dionuclide transfer to plants. The evaluation of separate soil property influence on the radionuclide uptake by plants is a com plex task. It was found that' "Cs and *Sr transfer to plants are reduced by a factor 1.5 to 3.0 as a result ctf the change of sodpodzolic soil reaction from acid (pHua 4,5-5,0) to neutral range (pHua 6,5-7,0), of humus content from 1.0 up to 3.5% and of exchangeable potassium content from tow (< 80 mg ICjCVkg of soil) up to high range (200-350 mg/kg). The lowest transfer ring of radionuclides to plants was observed at the optimal range of soil fertility parameters. On the basis of compilation and processing of experimental data the transfer factors of l37 Cs and '"Sr from soil to crop had been differentiated according to sail fertility parameters tar prediction of radionuclide accumulation in plant production. The soil fertility has to be improved in such a way that proposes the significant increase of crop yields with decreasing of the risk of people internal irradiation.

CONFIDENCE overview of improvements in radioecological human food chain models and future needs

“…Such models cannot easily cope with variation in root uptake caused by variation in soil properties (e.g. Bogdevitch et al, 2002;Panov et al, 2009). Process-based models offer an alternative, which take into account soil (and potentially plant) characteristics.…”