Published in Scientific Papers. Series A. Agronomy, Vol. LXIII, Issue 1
Written by Lyubka KOLEVA-VALKOVA, Veselin PETROV, Adelina HARIZANOVA, Atanas SEVOV
A strategy to alleviate soil toxicity, which is gaining popularity in the last years, is bioremediation by inoculation with specific microorganisms. In the present study, we tested the influence of a mixture of four microalgae strains (Scenedesmus incrassatulus, Trachydiscus minutus, Chlorella sp. and Phormidium sp.) on some biochemical parameters of barley plants cultivated on soil contaminated with petroleum products. The aim was to evaluate the effect of microalgae suspension treatment on soil health and on the potential for phytoremediation. For the purpose, the nitrogen assimilation capacity, the levels of oxidative stress as well as the state of both enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant systems in plants were measured. The results clearly show that petroleum-contaminated soil adversely affects the growth and development of the model culture, while treating the soil with the microalgae suspension significantly mitigates the negative impact. This is supported by the lower levels of stress markers and the increasing of some antioxidants in the plants grown on microalgae-treated soil. Therefore, the application of microalgae is an environmentally friendly strategy for improving soil health in areas affected by petroleum pollution.
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