Screening of popular cauliflower cultivars towards arsenic contamination in plant parts under deltaic bengal

Abstract

Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis) is grown in all continents of the world, of which Asia is leading one, India have about 38.81 percent of total cauliflower area of the world. Cauliflower is the most important commercial crop of West Bengal. It is used as fried vegetable either separately or with other vegetables. Over the past decade, arsenic contamination in food chain has been reported from the Deltaic Bengal. Arsenic poses serious health hazards for humans and animals under Gangetic delta basin of India and Bangladesh through contamination of groundwater and drinking water. Presence of Arsenic in vegetable crops and its translocation to the edible parts were observed to vary with crops and even among the cultivars of the same crop. Field experiments were conducted at village Nonaghata under Nadia district during 2008-09 and 2009-10 to assess the potential of arsenic poisoning through cauliflower. The experiment was laid out in RBD with three replications having five selected cultivars of cauliflower. The arsenic accumulations were estimated by using AAS, PerkinElmer AAnalyst-200 coupled with FIAS-400. Results revealed that, regarding varietal effect, cv. White marvel accumulated least arsenic in its edible part whereas the maximum accumulation was noted from local cultivar.