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Water Relations and Cadmium Uptake of Wheat Grown in Soil with Particulate Plastics
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This study examined water relations and cadmium uptake in wheat grown in soils containing particulate plastics, addressing a significant gap in understanding plastic effects on crop agriculture. The research provides data on how microplastics affect plant water use efficiency and potentially enhance heavy metal uptake.
Particulate plastics in the terrestrial environment have been less studied, and essentially no information exists concerning the water relations of plants grown in soil with particulate plastics. The shoots were submitted to the Soil Testing Laboratory at Kansas State University for analysis of toxic trace element (Cd). The polyethylene glycol was analyzed for total Cd using the same method to analyze the soil for total Cd. The reduction in evapotranspiration rate by the presence of the wet Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) may have been due to the clogging of the pores in the soil with the large molecular-weight PEG with associated water molecules. Particulate plastics enter the environment either directly or after plastic products have broken down due to weathering or other degradation processes. Polyethylene glycol was chosen as a model particulate plastic. The plastics degrade over time, producing microplastics, defined as synthetic organic polymer particles with a size between 100 nm and 5 mm.
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