Stress tolerance of five willow clones after irrigation with different amounts of landfill leachate.

Short-rotation willow (Salix sp.) coppice, a commercial crop grown for energy purposes, is used for phytoremediation of landfill leachate in Sweden. However, the leachate's chemical composition can cause plant damage mainly due to high NaCl and NH4 concentrations. A pot experiment was conducted in order to quantify the growth responses of five different willow clones ("78-183", "Jorr", "Loden", "Olof", "Tora") to irrigation with different leachate mixtures (corresponding to 240, 180, and 120 mg Cl l(-1)) and to assess the applicability of leaf length and leaf fluctuating asymmetry as stress indicators. A series of plant traits (shoot, root and leaf dry weight, leaf area, leaf length and leaf fluctuating asymmetry) were measured. The irrigation with leachate resulted in reduced relative growth rates but there were no clear differences between the different concentrations. The clones "Jorr" and "Loden" performed best in terms of differences in relative growth rate between control and leachate treatments. Leaf length appeared to be a useful stress diagnostic tool for use in situ showing a high correlation to growth, whereas fluctuating asymmetry showed no such correlation. Higher N, lower P and higher Na concentrations in plant stems treated with leachate than control plants were observed.

[1]  Dan Sun,et al.  Survival and growth responses of a number of Australian tree species planted on a saline site in tropical north Australia , 1995 .

[2]  J. M. Emlen,et al.  Translational and Fluctuating Asymmetry as Tools to Detect Stress in Stress‐Adapted and Nonadapted Plants , 2001, International Journal of Plant Sciences.

[3]  D. Morabito,et al.  Response of clones of Eucalyptus microtheca to NaCl in vitro. , 1994, Tree physiology.

[4]  R. Fritz,et al.  FLUCTUATING ASYMMETRY IN A SALIX HYBRID SYSTEM: THE IMPORTANCE OF GENETIC VERSUS ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES , 1999, Evolution; international journal of organic evolution.

[5]  Kurth Perttu,et al.  Willow vegetation filters for wastewater treatment and soil remediation combined with biomass production , 2001 .

[6]  M. Ettala.  Short-Rotation Tree Plantations At Sanitary Landfills , 1988 .

[7]  R. Hunt.  Plant Growth Curves: The Functional Approach to Plant Growth Analysis , 1983 .

[8]  Martin Weih,et al.  Limitations and improvement of the potential utilisation of woody biomass for energy derived from short rotation woody crops in Sweden and Germany. , 2005 .

[9]  J. Gronow,et al.  Groundwater protection in the UK : assessment of the Landfill Leachate source-term , 1992 .

[10]  R. Mcbride,et al.  Landfill Leachate Recirculation: Effects on Vegetation Vigor and Clay Surface Cover Infiltration , 1991 .

[11]  M. Bowman,et al.  Sustainable Management of Landfill Leachate by Irrigation , 2002 .

[12]  S. Tyrrel,et al.  Irrigating short rotation coppice with landfill leachate : constraints to productivity due to chloride , 2000 .

[13]  C. Strobeck,et al.  Fluctuating Asymmetry: Measurement, Analysis, Patterns , 1986 .

[14]  J. Leckie,et al.  Environmental Impacts of Solid Waste Landfilling , 1997 .

[15]  E. Zvereva,et al.  Stress responses of Salix borealis to pollution and defoliation , 1997 .

[16]  P. A. Attwood,et al.  Roots of willow (Salix viminalis L.) show marked tolerance to oxygen shortage in flooded soils and in solution culture , 1996, Plant and Soil.

[17]  M. Weih,et al.  Characterising willows for biomass and phytoremediation: growth, nitrogen and water use of 14 willow clones under different irrigation and fertilisation regimes , 2002 .

[18]  C. K. Leung,et al.  Landfill Leachate as Irrigation Water for Tree and Vegetable Crops , 1989 .

[19]  D. C. Freeman,et al.  Is Fluctuating Asymmetry a Reliable Biomonitor of Stress? A Test Using Life History Parameters in Soybean , 1998, International Journal of Plant Sciences.

[20]  W. Larcher.  Physiological Plant Ecology , 1977 .