Heavy Metals in Soil and Sugarcane Accumulation in Agricultural Area along Huanjiang River in Guangxi, China

Heavy metal contaminations to farmland soil is a common threaten to crop yield and food safety, phytoremediation with economic plants with high bio-accumulation is a sustainable approach to recover polluted farmland. As a high ethanol yield crop, sugarcane has attracted increasing industrial interest as a raw material for biofuel and the risk of heavy metal in it is negligible if the sugar produced is to be fermented into ethanol rather than by consumed. This study is to do a preliminary investigation if sugarcane is a suitable crop for phytoremediation in heavy metal polluted farmland in a context of geographic conditions in southern China, thirty-eight soil and sugarcane samples were collected in five villages in a typical agricultural county called Huangjiang which is located in the Huanjiang River Basin in Guangxi province. Sugarcane is widely cultivated in Huangjiang as one of the major economic crops, meanwhile, pollutions induced by mining and ore-extraction in this area has resulted in heavy metals entering the farmland soils. Samples collected were used to assess the correlation of the level of heavy metals in the soil, and their concentrations in roots, sections of stems and leaves. Seven heavy metals were selected in this study and the results showed that most of the toxic heavy metals intake by sugarcane accumulated in the roots, while only a small portion is transferred to the stems and leaves. The study initially outlined sugarcane as a potential candidate for phytoremediation in farmland polluted by heavy metals with economic motivate in this subtropical geographical background.