Metal availability and uptake by sorghum plants grown in soils amended with sludge from different treatments

Several factors depending on the sludge, the soil, or the combination of both substrates, may affect element availability to plants. In this study, an assessment was done of the effect of two sludges obtained by different processes (activated sludge and facultative stabilization pond) on heavy-metal availability and uptake by sorghum plants in soils with high and low copper contents. Results obtained for DTPA-extractable metal indicated higher metal availability in sludge-amended soils. In addition, sludges caused changes in copper and zinc distribution in soil, indicating in most cases a discrete increase in the more labile metal forms. However, observed changes did not increase heavy metal concentration in plant leaves, indicating that assessment of metal availability by a chemical procedure (single extraction or metal fractionation) would not permit a good prediction of metal bioavailability. On the other hand, sludge application at a rate of 100 t ha−1 to high-copper agricultural soils would not imply greater mobility of this metal on account of a greater sorbing capacity provided by the sludges. Such results would indicate that sludges from wastewater treatment plants, meeting the standards of heavy metal contents, regardless of the process by which they were obtained, may be applied to several kinds of soil, even to high-copper soils, with no risk of increasing heavy metal bioavailability to phytotoxic levels in the short range.