An analysis on soil contamination and its impact on agricultural economy Case study: soil contamination and its impact on Barbarea Verna plant cultivation in Sistan

One of the major concerns of today’s human is the contamination of agricultural soil with different chemical pollutants, especially heavy metals which is considered as one of the important challenges of agricultural development and hence rural development. The use of a variety of organic and chemical fertilizers, municipal waste, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides and many other agricultural processes that affect locally on the soil potentially will face agricultural and rural development with problem.
 This research, in order to evaluate the effect of organic manure (animal and compost) on the growth rate and performance of Barbarea Verna (Lepidium sativum) plant as well as the uptake of copper, lead and chromium as heavy metals  by the root and aerial organs of the plant , by split plot based on the completely randomized block design with six Treatment and four replications was conducted in the Crop Field Research Paradise of Zabol University in 2008-2009. The Treatments consists of plots contaminated with heavy metals three Treatments (manure, compost and chemical fertilizer) and non-contaminated plots three Treatments (manure, compost and chemical fertilizer). The results showed that the non-contaminated Treatments compared with contaminated Treatments enjoyed higher performance. But this difference was not statistically significant. Considering the comparison of the data average, the most performance of Barbarea Verna plant was obtained from the chemical fertilizer Treatment non-contaminated with heavy metals(6.09 ton/ha) and the least performance of Barbarea Verna plant was also taken from the manure Treatment contaminated with heavy metal(4 ton/ha). The results of data variance analysis showed that among various types of fertilizers, from the view of heavy elements accumulation in the plant mass, there is a significant difference. The comparison of data average of both contaminated Treatment and non-contaminated Treatment indicated that the accumulation of heavy elements both in the root tissue and in the aerial organs of Barbarea Verna plant that were treated with various types of fertilizers contaminated with heavy metals was more than non-contaminated Treatments.