Prediction of phytoavailability of trace metals to plants: Comparison between chemical extractions and soil-grown radish

One of the major routes of human exposure to toxic metals is the consumption of vegetables grown on contaminated soils. Radishes were grown in three different soils (kitchen garden, agricultural and industrial soils), presenting various contamination levels. A sequential extraction procedure was compared with EDTA and HCl simple extractions methods in order to predict the metals phytoavailabilty to radish. The analysis of the results shows that the simple HCl and sequential chemical extractions bring complementary results, since HCl is correlated in the phytoavailability of Cd, Mn and Zn, whereas the sequential extraction is correlated in the phytoavailability of Cr, Fe, Mn, Ni. EDTA simple extraction brings here less interesting results than the two other tested extractions.