Massoud, O.N.; Sabha, M. El-Sabagh; Ebtsam, M. Morsy and Mai, K.M. Megahe( 2012). Alleviation of Certain Heavy Metals Toxicity on Zea mays by Arbuscular MycorrhizaJournal of Applied Sciences Research, 8(7): 3491-3502
Abstract: Soil pollution with heavy metals causes a lot of hazards especially when they accumulate in plant tissues. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi have a magic role in soil remediation that polluted with heavy metals. So, a greenhouse experiment was conducted at the nutrition greenhouse, Soil, Water and Environment institute (SWERI), ARC, Giza, Egypt during summer 2011 to study the interaction of Arbuscular mycorrhizal with certain heavy metals (Zinc and Copper) when soil polluted with three concentrations 0.1, 1 and 5 mM of ZnSO4 or CuSO4, and the impact on metal mobilization and accumulation by Zea mays. Results confirmed the ability of mycorrhizal to increase plant root and shoot lengths, dry weights and yield parameters. The increase of mycorrhizal colonization (%) in roots, the plant content of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, crude protein (%) and total carbohydrates were also detected in this study. Increase in soil enzyme activities urease and dehydrogenase were resulted from incorporation of AMF and metals in the soil. Results illustrated that the concentrations of heavy metals in Zea mayze plants were limited according to the actual requirements of plant. Mycorrhizal plants led to the increase of tolerance index against Zn and Cu concentrations and also alleviated the reduction rate in plant. That proved the vital role of AMF to limit heavy metals translocations and gave the possibility to use it as an inoculum in remediation of polluted soil with these fatal metals.
Keywords: (Heavy Metals Toxicity, Zea mays, Arbuscular Mycorrhiza)
