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Reduction of Strontium-85 Uptake in Field Crops By Deep Plowing and Sodium Carbonate Application¹

Asbtract: Deep plowing reduced uptake of Sr⁸⁵ by four irrigated crops on Pullman silty clay loam at Bushland, Texas. Uptake was further reduced when Na₂CO₃ was plowed under with the Sr⁸⁵. The relative concentrations of Sr⁸⁵ in mature soybean (Glycine max), sugar beet (Beta vulgaris), sudangrass (Sorghum sudanense), and cabbage (Brassica oleracea var capitata) plants grown with Sr⁸⁵ applied in different treatments were: rotary tilled 20 cm deep, 100; plowed 90 cm deep, 25–50; plowed 90 cm deep with 22,400 kg/ha (10 tons/acre) of Na₂CO₃, 3–7. In the plowing treatments, 90% of both the Sr^>85 and the Na₂CO₃ were banded in the furrow deeper than 75 cm. Crop yields were increased by deep plowing and were affected very little by the application of Na₂CO₃. This experiment demonstrates that a toxic chemical can be plowed under deeply with radioactive contamination to reduce the uptake of the radioactive material with little effect on yield from the chemical.

Key Words: radioactive soil contamination • decontamination • soil management

² Research Soil Scientists, U.S. Soils Laboratory, Beltsville, Md. 20705, and Southwestern Great Plains Research Center, Bushland, Texas, and Research Agricultural Engineers, Agricultural Engineering Laboratory, Beltsville, Md. Wilkins is now a graduate student at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Received for publication February 23, 1968.

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