Effect of Waste Water Irrigation on Mineral Content of Delonix elata

Three forms of waste water from Jeddah City namely: untreated,secondary treated and finally treated beside tap water, as a control,were used to irrigate Delonix elata (L.) Gamble plants for 103 days.The macro and microelements, as well as, heavy metals (Ca, Mg, N, P,K, Na, Fe, Cu, Mn, Cl, Zn, Pb, As, Ba, Cd, Cr, Hg and Ni) content of D.elata shoot and root systems were estimated for four harvests every 22days of waste water irrigation. The results show that the highest accumulationpatterns were detected in plants grown under untreatedwaste water irrigation and they couldn’t survive this high toxicity anddied before 103 days of plant age. Generally, secondary treated wastewater led to minerals accumulation more than did the tap water, whilefinally treated waste water showed the least accumulation of metals. Themacro and microelements, as well as heavy metals were highly accumulatedin the shoot system than in the root one, except for Fe, Mnand Ba. However, as the plant aged the accumulated minerals increased.