Determination of the Environmental Pollution Potential of Some Herbicides by the Assessment of Cytotoxic and Genotoxic Effects on Allium cepa

Catalin Aurelian Rosculete, Elena Bonciu, Elena Rosculete and Liviu Aurel Olaru
Additional contact information
Catalin Aurelian Rosculete: Department of Land Measurement, Management, Mechanization, Faculty of Agronomy, University of Craiova, 13 A.I. Cuza Street, 200585 Craiova, Romania
Elena Bonciu: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Technology, Faculty of Agronomy, University of Craiova, 13 A.I. Cuza Street, 200585 Craiova, Romania
Elena Rosculete: Department of Land Measurement, Management, Mechanization, Faculty of Agronomy, University of Craiova, 13 A.I. Cuza Street, 200585 Craiova, Romania
Liviu Aurel Olaru: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Technology, Faculty of Agronomy, University of Craiova, 13 A.I. Cuza Street, 200585 Craiova, Romania

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: The present study aims to evaluate the potential for the pollution of the environment by two herbicides (quizalofop-p-ethyl and cycloxydim), using the Allium test. The species in question is Allium cepa (onion, 2 n = 16), one of the most common plant indicators of environmental pollution. The working method consisted of obtaining the meristematic roots of Allium cepa and their treatment with herbicides at three different concentrations (0.5%, 1%, and 1.5%) for each herbicide for 24 h, for comparison with an untreated control. The results obtained from the cytological study indicated a strong cytotoxic and genotoxic effect for both herbicides, but especially for quizalofop-p-ethyl, where the mitotic index decreased from 30.2% (control) to 9.6% for the variant treated with 1.5% herbicide. In this case, a strong mitodepressive effect was shown by a highly significant percentage (35.4%) of chromosomal aberrations and nuclear alterations: stickiness, fragments, C-mitosis, lobulated nucleus, micronuclei, and nuclear erosion. The mitodepressive effect as well as the percentage of chromosomal aberrations increased with a higher herbicide concentration. The obtained results suggest the strong potential for pollution of the two herbicides, particularly at concentrations higher than 0.5%; therefore, we recommend caution in their use to avoid undesirable effects on the environment.

Keywords: Allium cepa; herbicides; mitotic index; chromosomal aberrations; cytotoxicity; genotoxicity; pollution potential (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/1/75/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/1/75/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2018:i:1:p:75-:d:193715

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().