JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

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Cadmium (Cd) and its rate in soil have received lots of attention because it is easily taken up by plant root, making it 20 times more toxic in comparison with other heavy metals. Knowledge about the factors affecting Cd availability and conversion of its chemical forms is, therefore, important. Sequential extraction has been used as a suitable method for identification of chemical forms and their relationship with plant availability, but in soils of Iran less attention has been paid to studying the change in chemical forms as affected by time. The present research was designed to study the change in Cd chemical forms as affected by application rate and time of incubation in two soil textural classes. A clay loam calcareous soil [Fine, mixed (calcareous), mesic Typic Calcixerepts] was converted to sandy loam soil by adding pure quartz sand and both soils were treated with 0, 5, 15, 30, and 60 mg Cd / kg soil as cadmium sulfate and incubated at room temperature near field capacity moisture. After 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 weeks, chemical forms of Cd were determined by sequential extraction. Results showed that, depending on the textural classes, about 82 and 87 % of applied Cd was converted to soluble+exchangeable, carbonate, and organic forms. In both soils carbonate fraction was dominant. Conversion of applied Cd to soluble+exchangeable and carbonate forms in sandy loam was higher than in clay loam. For organic, manganese oxide, amorphous iron oxide, and residual forms, the reverse was true. The crystalline iron oxide form was less than detection limit of atomic absorption in both textural classes. Increasing the application rate caused an increase in all forms of Cd but the percentage increase depended on the capacity of different soil components for Cd retention. Carbonate showed the highest capacity for retention. The effect of incubation time on conversion of Cd to different forms was significant. However, in almost all treatments more than 80 % of added Cd was converted to carbonate and organic forms immediately, and the proportion approximately stayed the same throughout the course of experiment.

Keywords: Chemical forms of cadmium, Sequential extraction, Incubation .

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