PLANT FE, AL AND CR CONCENTRATIONS IN VEGETABLES AS INFLUENCED BY SOIL INCLUSION

Soil entrapment by plant tissue is often ignored when the tissue is an alyzed. This leads to errors in interpretation of results. Plant tissu e samples were taken from vegetables grown in experimental field plots in Norfolk, VA, Riverhead, NY, and Geneva, NY. At harvest, plant tiss ues were washed with deionized water, cut into small pieces, oven drie d (VA) or freeze dried (NY), ground to pass a 0.0841-cm stainless stee l screen and stored in glass bottles. The surface 15 cm of each soil w as sampled. Subportions of tissue and soil were analyzed for a number of elements by inductively coupled argon plasma emission spectrometry (ICP-ES) and electrothermal atomic absorption (ETAA). Titanium (Ti) co ncentrations in the soil and plant tissue were used as a measure of so il inclusion. As much as 76% of the Al, 100% of the Cr, and 70% of the Fe in the vegetable samples could be accounted for by soil particulat e inclusion by the plant tissue during its growth.