Investigation of the Effect of Salinity and Cadmium Interaction on the Amount of Pigments in Hawthorn Plant

One of the most important issues in today's world is cleaning soil contaminated with mineral pollutants. Phytoremediation is one of the methods that has received a lot of attention in recent decades due to its economic and environmental compatibility. This study aims to investigate the effect of salinity and polluted soils on cadmium absorption by hawthorn species.

This study was a completely randomized design with two factors of cadmium and salinity which was carried out in factorial form with 3 replications. Cadmium factor had five different levels including zero (control), 50, 100, 200, and 400 mM and salinity factor had three different levels of zero (control), 50, and 100 mM sodium chloride.

With the increase of salinity and cadmium concentration, the amount of photosynthetic pigments, i.e., chlorophyll a and b, carotenoid, and total chlorophyll decreased significantly which was related to 50 mmol of salinity and 100 mmol of cadmium.

Based on the obtained results, hawthorn seedlings can be suggested as stabilizing species for cleaning soils contaminated with the heavy metal cadmium.