Joseph and colleagues measured seven metals in kenaf, chili pepper, tomato and spinach plant parts, with associated soil and irrigation water from Gobbiya Dam in Nigeria. The paper separates edible leaves or fruits from roots and stems. Its concentration tables are preserved independently of several inconsistent safety comparisons and a soil-index calculation that uses water standards.
Key numbers
Tables 1–4 (PDF pp. 4–6) report mean ± SD with n=3 replicate measurements. Selected edible parts are shown below in mg/kg of oven-dried material; the structured evidence retains all sampled organs and the repeated soil/water observations once. BDL means below an unreported detection limit.
| Plant part | tAs | Fe | Cd | Cu | Cr | Pb | Ni |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kenaf leaves | 0.018 ± 0.015 | 0.536 ± 0.076 | 0.064 ± 0.004 | BDL | 0.082 ± 0.017 | 0.051 ± 0.006 | 0.181 ± 0.105 |
| Chili pepper fruits | 0.032 ± 0.004 | 1.358 ± 0.114 | 0.295 ± 0.307 | 0.347 ± 0.036 | 0.078 ± 0.011 | 0.048 ± 0.007 | 0.217 ± 0.083 |
| Tomato fruits | 0.055 ± 0.001 | 0.563 ± 0.050 | 0.084 ± 0.004 | 0.064 ± 0.053 | 0.101 ± 0.010 | 0.043 ± 0.006 | 0.267 ± 0.051 |
| Spinach leaves | 0.025 ± 0.011 | 1.345 ± 0.104 | 0.075 ± 0.002 | 0.242 ± 0.028 | 0.079 ± 0.008 | 0.052 ± 0.004 | 0.298 ± 0.020 |
Tables 5–8 retain organ-specific bioaccumulation factors, leaf/root translocation factors, the source’s contamination-factor calculation, and profile correlations as separate statistical records. They are not additional concentration samples.
Methods (brief)
Vegetables were washed, oven-dried at 80°C for 24 hours, pulverized and digested with a sulfuric/perchloric/nitric-acid mixture. Soil was collected at 0–20 cm, composited, dried and digested separately. Acid-preserved water was digested with nitric acid. Atomic absorption spectrometry measured As, Fe, Cd, Cu, Cr, Pb and Ni without species separation. The source reports triplicate measurements and SD, ANOVA and a post-hoc comparison, but no instrument-specific LODs, certified-reference results or field sample count.
Implications
The organ-resolved dry-weight values support local occurrence and irrigation-pathway analysis. Roots, stems and non-edible leaves are retained as pathway context rather than assigned to edible-product distributions. Broad leafy-vegetable and herb/spice ingredient routes retain kenaf and chili identity in the structured record without substituting a named cultivar.
Evidence Fitness: EF-3; measured organ-level occurrence summaries with limited sampling and analytical quality documentation. Transfer metrics and correlations are source-model outputs; the soil contamination-factor calculation is methodologically unsuitable for an independent soil-hazard claim.
Wiki pages this source may touch
- Leafy / Green Vegetables, Other
- Non-Root Vegetables
- Leafy Vegetables
- Spinach
- Tomato
- Herbs And Spices
- Irrigation water and soil amendments as anthropogenic inputs to cropland
- Arsenic, Total
- Iron
- Cadmium
- Copper
- Chromium
- Lead
- Nickel
Verification notes
The same soil and water means recur in Tables 1–4 and are not treated as four independent samples. The text incorrectly generalizes several BAF results; Table 5 contains lead factors below one and nickel factors below one. Table 7 explicitly divides soil values by WHO water standards, mixing scopes/bases; its contamination labels are not adopted. The paper prints inconsistent arsenic vegetable limits (0.05 in tables and 0.5 below figures) and inconsistent exceedance prose. These secondary regulatory comparisons are not ingested as legal limits. BDL-derived ratio zeros are not measured concentration zeros. Arsenic is total/unspeciated and chromium is not Cr(VI).
Matrix vocabulary extensions vegetables, non-edible-plant-tissue and irrigation-water distinguish edible organs, experimental non-food tissues and sampled dam water. The paper does not identify the sampled dam water as wastewater.
The preserved Library PDF is identified by RPHMI_4; SHA-256 ab61fa314027d0b1fe0388c535ad26794d819c939c4d7e3c092ac8502d5cac4b. The byline, year and publication were verified in the PDF. DOI provenance and any publication-date differences are described above. Original access location: https://journals.nipes.org/index.php/jete/article/download/2568/1669. Source-specific numeric observations, context dispositions, row-fit decisions and remaining gaps are preserved in the structured evidence record. No source value was converted across product, soil, water or experimental matrices during ingest.
Update history
No substantive edit history is available in this build. The full commit record is available in git.