Overview
Durante-Yánez and colleagues grew sweet pepper for 143 days in pots of soil taken 0.6 km, 3 km and a longer distance from artisanal gold mining, and measured mercury, lead and arsenic in roots, stems, leaves and fruit. Only the two less contaminated soils produced fruit. Table 4 gives fruit values for four harvests.
Key numbers
- Fruit mercury, soil S2 (3 km): 0.07 ± 0.04, 0.05 ± 0.01, 0.100 ± 0.003 and 0.05 ± 0.01 mg/kg for harvests C1 to C4 (Table 4).
- Fruit mercury, soil S3: 1 × 10^-4 mg/kg (C1 to C3) and 4 × 10^-4 mg/kg (C4) (Table 4).
- Fruit lead: 0.090 ± 0.004 mg/kg in S2 harvest C1; all other harvests < 0.08 mg/kg (Table 4).
- Fruit arsenic: < 0.05 mg/kg in every harvest (Table 4).
Methods (brief)
Plant parts were dried and ground. Mercury by direct mercury analyzer (EPA 7473); lead by flame AAS and arsenic by hydride-generation AAS after microwave digestion (EPA 3051A). IAEA-336 lichen reference material recoveries 103 to 106 percent; 10 percent duplicates.
Evidence Fitness
A controlled experiment in mining-affected soils (site context: mining), three replicate pots per soil, one local variety of unstated colour. The fruit basis (fresh or dry) is not stated, the far-site distance is printed as 20 km in the abstract and 10 km in the methods, and the mercury (Hg) limit cited in Table 4 differs from the abstract. It is evidence on sweet pepper in general, not specifically green bell pepper, so the green-bell-pepper page is not linked.