Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoenv Mixed plantation of wheat and accumulators in arsenic contaminated plots: A novel way to reduce the uptake of arsenic in wheat and load on antioxidative defence of plant Ashish Praveen a,b,* , Sonali Mehrotra a,c , Nandita Singh a,** a Plant Ecology and Environmental Science Division, National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, 226001, Uttar Pradesh, India b Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), New Delhi, India c Department of Botany, Dolphin (PG) Institute, Manduwala, Uttarakhand Technical University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Arsenic Wheat Accumulators Antioxidative defense Phytoremediation Prunning ABSTRACT Wheat (W) and accumulators (A) were planted in plots (arsenic amended soil and without arsenic) designed with ecotoxicological concern for arsenic safe-grains. For the study sixteen plots of 2 × 2 × 0.5 m (l × b × h) size were prepared. Arsenic (As) in the form of sodium arsenate was applied at 50 mg/kg in plots. Out of these sixteen plots eight plots had arsenic amended soil and rest 8 without any arsenic (C). Accumulator's viz. Pteris vittata (PV), Phragmites australis (PA) and Vetiveria zizanioides (VZ) were planted along with wheat in combination (W + PV, W + PA and W + VZ) in twelve plots (6 AWAs plots and 6 AWC plots). In the rest 4 plots (2 WAs plots and 2 WC plots), only wheat was planted. The study was conducted for two cropping seasons, where accumu- lators were left in the plots between the cropping seasons except that before 2nd cropping accumulators were properly pruned and extra tillers were removed. The germination % of wheat in WAs in 1st and the 2nd cropping season was found to be 55 and 57%, while in AWAs and AWC plots it was between 86 and 92% (W + VZ, 56 and 73%). The physiological activity was found to be reduced in WAs plots compared to AWAs (except for vetiver combination) and AWC plots in both cropping seasons. The antioxidant activity was enhanced in WAs compared with AWAs. The arsenic concentration in grains of wheat was within the permissible limit set by WHO and GOI in AWAs plots while it exceeded the limit in W + VZ (in 1st cropping) and WAs in both cropings. 1. Introduction Industrialization has made our life comfortable, but it has bought with it the problem of pollution and contamination. In the beginning we had lots of space, forest and less population, but now these are limiting and population is increasing. Therefore, it is an urgent need to stress on the increasing pollution and contamination of our environment. The increasing heavy metal contamination with concentrations of trace elements (like As, Pb, Cu, etc.), in particular arsenic, is a serious issue (Argyropoulos et al., 2012; Boente et al., 2017), due to its toxicity and carcinogenicity (Gress et al., 2015). The concentration of arsenic has increased in various parts of the world through anthropogenic activities and the industrial effluents that are released in soil and water (Mitra et al., 2002; Pandey et al., 2002; Francisco et al., 2002). Increased levels of arsenic in soil and water have its effect on human health and also to the flora and fauna of that area (Singh et al., 2015; Tóth et al., 2016). Arsenic is a non essential element for plants. It interferes with the normal physiological and biological activity in plants (Mokgalaka- Matlala et al., 2008). Arsenic inhibits growth of plants and causes considerable stress (Stoeva and Bineva, 2003). In the food chain arsenic enters through consumption of vegetables, fruits and grains grown in contaminated areas (Säumel et al., 2012; Sharma et al., 2014). Thus, there is a potential risk to human health due to the toxicity caused by the arsenic through consumption of contaminated foods (Szolnoki et al., 2013, Tóth et al., 2016). Wheat and rice are the important staple foods and are consumed world wide (Shewry, 2009). Thus, in a rice and wheat based diet substantial amount of arsenic enters in human beings, not exposed to arsenic contamination, causing health issues (Meharg https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2019.109462 Received 23 January 2019; Received in revised form 17 May 2019; Accepted 21 July 2019 Abbreviations: As, Arsenic; AWAs, Accumulator Wheat Arsenic treated; AWC, Accumulator Wheat Control/untreated; WAs, Wheat arsenic treated; WC, Wheat Control/untreated; W, Wheat; C, Control; PV, Pteris vittata; PA, Phragmites australis; VZ, Vetiveria zizanioides; WHO, World Health Organisation; GOI, Government of India; l, length; b, width; h, depth * Corresponding author. CSIR- National Botanical Research Institute, Ranapratap marg, Lucknow, 226001, Uttar Pradesh, India. ** Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: aashishpraveen45@gmail.com (A. Praveen), sonali.mehrotra412@gmail.com (S. Mehrotra), nanditasingh8@yahoo.co.in (N. Singh). Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 182 (2019) 109462 0147-6513/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Inc. T