Possibilities of rapeseed cultivation as bioenergetic crop under conditions of chemically degraded soils in Russia

Abstract

© SGEM2017 All rights reserved. Russia has a significant bio-energy potential and a large fund of land resources, so there is no competition between the cultivation of bio-energetic crops with basic food ones, as in case of the EU countries. There is a steady trend of further growth of bio-energetic crop’s agroclimatic potential under condition of European part of Russia through the expansion of the agricultural zone to the north and east due to global climate change and the pressing in the agricultural turnover temporarily unused and fallow lands (up to 30 million hectares). The aim of these agroecological experiments was the determination of the phytoextraction capacity of two summer rape varieties with contrasting erucic acid contents in the seeds (0.1% and 20%) in conditions of Umbric Albeluvisols contamination with lead, cadmium and zinc. Maximum uptake coefficients of lead, cadmium and zinc by plants were estimated as 0.02; 1.97 and 3.10 respectively at the single treatment rates 550, 20 and 800 mg/kg soil, leading to 50% reduction of seed yield. Obtained experimental results demonstrated the possibility of combining the rapeseed cultivation for the bio-energy purpose with soil phytoremediation effect in case of contaminated and unproductive soils which are peculiar to areas with high population density and intensive industrial production.