Influence of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi on Growth and Heavy Metal (Cd & Hg) Uptake of Pinto Peanut (Arachis pintoi)

Abstract

The pollution of the ecosystem by heavy metals is a real threat to the environment because metals cannot be naturally degraded like organic pollutants and persist in the ecosystem having accumulated in different parts of the food chain. Due to the acute toxicity of heavy metal contaminants, an urgent need to develop low-cost, effective, and sustainable methods to remove or detoxify them from the environment. A study to investigate the growth and heavy metal (Cd and Hg) absorption capacity of Arachis pintoi associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) was conducted. The heavy metal (Cadmium and Mercury) uptake of A. pintoi inoculated with arbuscular mycorrizal fungi was also determined and compared by quantifying the heavy metal absorbed by the plants through Atomic Spectrophotometry. Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was used as the experimental design with four treatments replicated three times each for Cadmium and mercury were made. The analysis of variance suggests a highly significant difference in the main effect of treatments, the main effect in weeks and their interaction in cadmium and mercury set-up. The results have found out that Treatment 3 (Heavy metal without AMF) in heavy metal cadmium and mercury has the highest heavy metal uptake. The study further recommend that A. pintoi, a widely available and abundant plant species with mycorrhyzal fungi interaction will be a beneficial procedure in reducing heavy metal pollution in soil.