Analysis of morpho-physiological response in Brassica juncea opposing cadmium spiked soil

Abstract

Brassica Juncea, a “mustard plant,” is the second largest edible oil crop production source. This plant has a unique ability to store metal ions, thus recognized as a hyper-accumulator. Metal ions include cadmium which damages the plant at a morphological, physiological, and biochemical level. The previous study suggested that the different organic amendments inhibit the translocation of cadmium ions in plants. Thus, this research has been designed and performed with varying combinations of biological aspects, including - biochar, PGPR bacteria, and co-planting. The primary purpose is to identify the best combination for preventing cadmium ions translocation in the mustard plant. Eight treatments were made with different varieties, including one control and seven experimental groups. Phenotypical analysis revealed that cadmium reduce plant growth while the different combination of biological compositions helps the plant growth and yield quality. Moreover, the biochemical analysis identified that mustard plants with cadmium have higher antioxidant enzymes than other treatments. Furthermore, it has proven that cadmium negatively impacts the mustard plant; morphological, physiological, and biochemical aspects in term of phytoremediation, correspondence, with the help of different compound mixtures, its toxicity can reduce to a certain level. Research concludes that a combination of biochar, PGPR bacteria, and inter-cropping (T8) give competitively equivalent result as negative control (T1). This prove that if such combination can enhance growth parameters of hyperaccumulator plants than in future its use for non-hyperaccumulator plants more specifically crops that show highly effective under cadmium stress.