Metal accumulation, biochemical response and yield of Indian mustard grown in soil amended with rural roadside pond sediment Tanmoy Karak a,n,1 , Pradip Bhattacharyya b,nn , Ranjit Kumar Paul c , D.K. Das a a Department of Agricultural Chemistry and Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur-741 252, Nadia, West Bengal, India b Indian Statistical Institute, North-East Center, Tezpur-784028, Assam, India c Division of Biometrics and Statistical Modelling, Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi-110012, India article info Article history: Received 5 December 2012 Received in revised form 18 March 2013 Accepted 20 March 2013 Available online 15 April 2013 Keywords: Biochemical response Heavy metals Multivariate techniques Mustard yield Pond sediments abstract This present study aims to discern the effect of roadside pond sediments on Brassica juncea (L.) Czern. (cv. Rohini) by examining heavy metal uptake by different parts of the plant and its influence on biochemical properties, biomass, yield and oil content in plant. Although the treated soils were clearly contaminated with heavy metals (HMs) after application of pond sediments and chemical fertilizers, but the metal content in mustard leaves and seeds are below the permissible limit of consumable food. HMs accumulation was proportionally lesser in grains than in shoots and roots. All the biochemical characteristics were significantly (p o0.05) responded to the pond sediments application as compared to the control. Increase in photosynthetic pigment was also observed during growing period while pond sediment was used as amendment. This study revealed that Brassica juncea is well adapted to tolerate and accumulate high quantities of HMs due to increased level of antioxidants (cysteine and ascorbic acid) in roots, shoots and leaves. Multivariate techniques like principal component analysis and cluster analysis (CA) were used as classification techniques. On the basis of factor loadings and principal component scores, different parameters were grouped based on their similarity or closeness, separately in leaves, roots and seeds. A very similar grouping was also obtained using CA. However, pond sediment did not thwart the enhancement of mustard yield and oil content. Therefore, pond sediment would be a valuable resource for mustard as an alternative soil amendment for nutrients, but long-term use may require the cessation to restrict HMs contamination in soils. & 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Due to high cost of chemical fertilizers related to the minimum cost benefits from agricultural products, application of bottom pond sediment has been gaining popularity in some of the states of India and elsewhere as a plant nutrient supplement. From recent field experiments, convincing evidence has been obtained that application of pond sediments can significantly increase the yield of rice (Karak, 2010) and winter wheat (Karak and Bhattacharyya, 2010) as it contains fertilizing value that makes pond sediments a useful adjunct to enhance growth and yield of crops. Furthermore, pond sediment is gaining popularity as it has no cost implication, very convenient to transport from source to agricultural land and at the same time removal of pond sediments increases the depth of ponds, facilitating better pisciculture and water harvesting. Besides this, pond sediments have other importance in filling up the excavated agricultural land when top soils from agricultural lands are used for brick preparation. However it is a matter of concern when roadside pond sediments are used in agricultural fields as they contain significant amount of heavy metals (Karak, 2010). According to Wang et al. (2007) the sedimentary organic matter acts as metal adsorbent as it contents various functional organic functional groups, viz. –COOH, –NH 2 , –OH, –SH. Therefore, in the natural environment, adsorption of trace metals onto organic matter of sediments has a great influence on their mobility and toxicity towards living bodies. Among the various oilseed crops, Indian mustard (Brassica juncea L.) is an important one in view of the increased interest in biodiesel production in India. This crop occupies an area of about 6.32 million ha with a production of about 6.12 million - tonnes. Globally, India accounts for 25.6 percent of total area and 14.7 percent of total production of mustard. Position of India with respect to average yield, 968 kg ha −1 , is not satisfactory because it is much below the world average of 1343 kg ha −1 . West Bengal (221 34′-10.92″ N and 881 22′-10.92″ E) is the state of India which contributed 6.6 percent of total area under mustard cultivation in India (i.e. 0.42 million ha) and 5.0 percent (i.e. 0.31 million tonnes) Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoenv Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 0147-6513/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2013.03.019 n Corresponding author. Fax: +91 376 23 60474. nn Corresponding author. Fax: +91 3712 267321. E-mail addresses: tanmay.karak@gmail.com (T. Karak), pradip.bhattacharyya@gmail.com (P. Bhattacharyya). 1 Present address: Department of Soil, Tocklai Experimental Station, Tea Research Association, Jorhat-8, Assam, India. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 92 (2013) 161–173