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Heavy Metal Index

Screening of safe soybean cultivars for cadmium contaminated fields

Yang Zhi and colleagues screened 25 Chinese soybean cultivars for seed cadmium in pots and in the field.

Yang Zhi and colleagues screened 25 Chinese soybean cultivars for seed cadmium in pots and in the field. Pot spikes were T1 at 1.0 mg Cd/kg soil and T2 at 2.5 mg Cd/kg soil, plus an unspiked control. Table 2 lists pot-culture soil total cadmium at 0.15 mg/kg and field-culture soil total cadmium at 1.22 mg/kg. Cadmium was measured by atomic absorption (Hitachi 180-80). The detection limit is 0.01 mg/kg. Means are of three replicates.

Key numbers

Under T1, seed cadmium ranged from 0.09 to 0.98 mg/kg dry weight, mean 0.44. Eighty percent of cultivars (20 of 25) exceeded 0.20 mg/kg dry weight, the maximum the authors treat as the Chinese permissible level for seed. Under T2 the range was 0.29 to 2.06 mg/kg dry weight, mean 0.81, and all 25 cultivars were above 0.20. Five cultivars are named as low accumulators in the pot work: Shennong 10, Tiefeng 31, Tiedou 36, Tiefeng 37, and Liaodou 21.

In the field, seed cadmium ranged from 0.11 to 0.99 mg/kg, mean 0.47. The results text says Tiefeng 31, Shennong 10, and Tiedou 36 were below 0.20 mg/kg. The abstract instead names Shennong 10, Tiedou 36, and Liaodou 21 as the field cultivars suitable where soil cadmium is below 1.22 mg/kg. Both statements are in the paper. They do not name the same three cultivars.

Methods (brief)

Pot soil was spiked. Field soil was the 1.22 mg/kg soil in Table 2. Dry-weight seed concentrations. Certified reference soybean GBW10013 was used. Cultivar names above are genotypes, not commercial brands.

Evidence fitness

The means and ranges support a dry-weight description of seed cadmium in these cultivars and soils. They do not describe packaged soy foods.

Limitations

The abstract and the field-results paragraph name different trios below 0.20 mg/kg. The 0.20 mg/kg figure is the authors’ cited maximum, and the statute title is not requoted here.

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