Mozdzer and Gamrat 2023 - Sludge-ash granulates and crop metal uptake

Mozdzer and Gamrat tested four fertilizer granulates made from industrial sewage sludge, lignite ash, sawdust, ammonium phosphate, and potassium salt in a pot experiment with rape seed and triticale. This is primary soil-to-plant transfer and fertilizer-input evidence, not market food occurrence evidence. The source’s routeable facts are metal concentrations in the waste inputs, the finished granulates, baseline soil, rape seeds, and triticale grain, plus uptake and concentration-uptake correlations under controlled fertilizer treatments.

Key numbers

Waste inputs, granulates, and baseline soil

The three waste components used to make the fertilizer granulates had the following total metal concentrations in mg/kg dry matter:

The four produced granulates had these total metal concentrations in mg/kg dry matter:

The pot soil was slightly acidic, with pH(KCl) 6.0 and organic carbon 9.63 g/kg DM. Baseline total metal concentrations in soil were Cd 0.22, Cr 8.80, Cu 8.60, Ni 7.12, Pb 12.8, and Zn 35.7 mg/kg DM. The authors state that the waste inputs, granulates, and baseline soil were below applicable permissible levels.

Rape seed concentrations

Table 5 reports rape seed concentrations in mg/kg dry matter. Control values were Cd 0.021, Cu 3.43, Cr 20.00, Ni 0.21, Pb 0.39, and Zn 18.70 mg/kg DM.

Across all granulate types and doses, rape seed treatment-cell ranges were:

Granulate IV produced the highest rape seed means for Cu 5.32, Cr 29.7, Ni 0.63, Pb 0.81, and Zn 26.2 mg/kg DM; granulates II and IV shared the highest Cd mean at 0.035 mg/kg DM. The authors state that, compared with control, average rape seed metal concentrations increased by 33.0% for Cr, 42.6% for Cu, 52.4% for Ni, 92.3% for Pb, 98.7% for Zn, and 100% for Cd.

Triticale grain concentrations

Table 6 reports triticale grain concentrations in mg/kg dry matter. Control values were Cd 0.029, Cu 3.98, Cr 13.15, Ni 0.26, Pb 0.37, and Zn 30.00 mg/kg DM.

Across all granulate types and doses, triticale treatment-cell ranges were:

Granulate IV produced the highest triticale means for Cd 0.041, Cu 4.64, Cr 17.20, Pb 0.90, and Zn 41.07 mg/kg DM. Granulate II produced the highest Ni mean, 0.43 mg/kg DM. Compared with control, average triticale grain concentrations increased by 14.6% for Cu, 22.1% for Cr, 27.6% for Cd, 29.9% for Zn, 38.46% for Ni, and 116.2% for Pb.

Uptake and correlations

Tables 7 and 8 report uptake values using the paper’s unit label “mg/kg DM to pot.” Rape seed treatment ranges were Cd 0.22-0.46, Cu 0.037-0.064, Cr 0.18-0.38, Ni 2.45-7.30, Pb 5.05-10.95, and Zn 0.18-0.32, with control values Cd 0.11, Cu 0.018, Cr 0.10, Ni 1.05, Pb 2.00, and Zn 0.10. Triticale treatment ranges were Cd 0.26-0.74, Cu 0.03-0.09, Cr 0.11-0.33, Ni 2.26-9.36, Pb 5.10-16.82, and Zn 0.27-0.80, with control values Cd 0.19, Cu 0.03, Cr 0.09, Ni 1.69, Pb 2.41, and Zn 0.20.

The authors summarize uptake order as Pb > Ni > Cd > Cr > Zn > Cu for rape seed and Pb > Ni > Zn > Cd > Cr > Cu for triticale grain.

Table 9 reports positive content-uptake correlations:

Methods (brief)

The authors formulated four granulates from industrial sewage sludge, lignite ash, sawdust, ammonium phosphate, and potassium salt. Granulate doses were set by nitrogen content: 0.24, 0.48, and 0.72 g N per pot, corresponding to 80, 160, and 240 kg N/ha. Each pot contained 9 kg of loamy sand soil; seeds/grains were sown, thinned to five plants per pot, irrigated with distilled water, and top-dressed with urea. After production maturity, rape seeds and triticale grain were collected. Cd, Cr, Cu, Zn, Ni, and Pb were measured after acid mineralization by atomic emission/absorption spectrometry, with duplicate determinations and IAEA-V-10 hay powder reference material. Statistical analysis used two-factor ANOVA and Tukey testing at p = 0.05; Pearson correlations linked content and uptake.

Implications

Certification: This source should not be pooled as representative consumer-market rapeseed, rapeseed oil, wheat, or grain occurrence evidence. It is a controlled pot trial using waste-derived fertilizer granulates and dry plant-tissue measurements. It can support supply-chain and agronomic-risk context: higher industrial-sludge share and higher granulate dose generally increased Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, and Zn in harvested crop material.

Courses: Useful for teaching why input-material testing matters before waste-derived soil amendments enter crop systems. It also shows why crop concentration and uptake must be kept separate from market benchmark distributions.

App: Route as fertilizer-input and soil-to-plant transfer context for Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn. Do not translate rape seed values into rapeseed-oil values; most seed metals partition away from refined oil during oil extraction.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• cadmium
• chromium
• copper
• nickel
• lead
• zinc
• soil-to-plant-transfer
• agronomic

Verification notes

The PDF has author attribution and DOI 10.3390/app13052863; no DOI conflict was observed. Names in the frontmatter are ASCII transliterations of the byline. The title says “winter rape,” but the abstract and methods describe spring rape (Larisa cv.) and spring triticale (Milikaro cv.); this page preserves the title while describing the experiment according to the methods. Table 6 appears internally inconsistent for the Ni dose means: the printed dose-mean row does not match the visible treatment cells, so this page uses treatment-cell ranges and granulate means rather than relying on the printed Ni dose means. Uptake tables retain the paper’s ambiguous unit label and are not treated as product concentration data.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.