Agronomy 2023, 13, 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy13010127 www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy Article Features of the Phytoremediation by Agricultural Crops of Heavy Metal Contaminated Soils Andrey Ilinskiy 1 , Dmitriy Vinogradov 2 , Natalia Politaeva 3 , Vladimir Badenko 3, * and Igor Ilin 3 1 All-Russian Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Land Reclamation, 127550 Moscow, Russia 2 Department of Agronomy and Agrotechnologies, Ryazan State Agrotechnological University Named after P.A. Kostychev, 390044 Ryazan, Russia 3 Institute of Civil Engineering, Peter the Great Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University, 195251 Saint Petersburg, Russia * Correspondence: badenko_vl@spbstu.ru Abstract: The novelty of the present research consisted in the study of the features of heavy metals accumulation in the phytomass of agricultural plants under the conditions of complex heavy metals contamination of podzolized chernozem (ashy soil) in the Ryazan region (Russia). Results of the vegetation experiments conducted on four crops—oats, black beans, buckwheat, and soybeans— were analyzed, which made it possible to assess the ability of these plants to accumulate heavy metals in their phytomass depending on the level of the heavy metals contamination of the soil. Results of the study showed that the removal of copper, zinc, and lead by beans was noticeably higher than that by oats, buckwheat and soy, due to their greater tolerance and ability to form a large phytomass, which must be taken into consideration when choosing phytoremediation for soil decontamination. This made it possible to evaluate the possibility of using the analyzed plants for the biological purification of polluted soil. The results are also planned to be used in the digitaliza- tion of agricultural production. Keywords: phytoremediation; heavy metals; soil; vegetation experiments; agricultural production 1. Introduction Environmentally safe crop production is one of the most important tasks of modern civilization [1–4]. Obtaining agricultural field soils of the proper quality play a key role in solving this major problem [3–8]. However, increasing anthropogenic impacts have led to the entry of many hazardous chemicals into the soils of agricultural fields. This reduces the quality of the soils and, accordingly, affects crop products, which are raw materials for the production of food for humans and domestic animals [3–6]. Heavy metals are par- ticularly dangerous pollutants for agricultural fields. Therefore, much attention is paid worldwide to solving the problems of heavy metals removal from soils [9–11]. The content of heavy metals in soil depends on the chemical composition of parent rocks (natural landscape) and anthropogenic impacts [12–14]. The anthropogenic sources of soil pollu- tion by heavy metals are thermal power plants (primarily coal-fired); metallurgical plants; automobile exhausts; chemical industry enterprises; and the use of mineral and organic fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals in agriculture [11,15–19]. In the agricultural regions of Russia, the accumulation of heavy metals in the root layer of agricultural landscapes is observed to have occurred as a result of anthropogenic impacts as opposed to the origin content of heavy metals in soil-forming rocks [20,21]. Heavy metals such as copper, zinc, lead, and cadmium are the most significant polluters of agricultural soils in in the European part of Russia [22]. Earlier studies have shown that as a result of man-made load in the root-inhabited layer of the agricultural landscape of the Ryazan region, located in the southern part of the non-Chernozem zone of Russia, a Citation: Ilinskiy, A.; Vinogradov, D.; Politaeva, N.; Badenko, V.; Ilin, I. Features of the Phytoremediation by Agricultural Crops of Heavy Metal Contaminated Soils. Agronomy 2023, 13, 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/ agronomy13010127 Academic Editors: Essaid Ait Barka and Jianbin Zhou Received: 6 October 2022 Revised: 26 December 2022 Accepted: 27 December 2022 Published: 30 December 2022 Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Li- censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and con- ditions of the Creative Commons At- tribution (CC BY) license (https://cre- ativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).