Abstract
Present study deals with a technology that reduces the cadmium(Cd) availability to the leafy vegetable Amaranthus caudatus
from Cd contaminated soil (6 μg Cd g-1
soil), amended with farmyard manure FYM, FYM+NPK and agricultural wastes (rice
husk; RH and saw dust; SD) at different doses (0.5 %, 2 %, 5 % and 10 %). Among all the doses 5 % was found to the best for
each amendment showing maximum reduction in phytoavailability of Cd hence better vegetable yield. At this dose the reduction
in Cd availability showed the order FYM + NPK combination (45 %) > FYM (36 %) > RH (23 %) > SD (14 %). Freundlich
equation suggested that among all the doses, 5 % showed better metal adsorbing property. The correlation matrix also suggested that decrease in Cd availability due to amendment was positively correlated with its reduction in edible portion of the plants. At 5 % dose of each amendment, there were maximum metabolic activities such as photosynthetic O2 yield, PS II activity and respiration rate. This technique appears to be cost effective, easy to apply in metal contaminated fields and can also reduced
health risk by reducing food chain contamination.