Co-Application of Silicate and Low-Arsenic-Accumulating Rice Cultivars Efficiently Reduces Human Exposure to Arsenic—A Case Study from West Bengal, India
Arkaprava Roy,
Siba Prasad Datta,
Mandira Barman,
Debasis Golui,
Somnath Bhattacharyya,
Mahesh Chand Meena,
Viswanathan Chinnusamy,
Suchitra Pushkar,
Punyavrat S. Pandey,
Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman
Affiliations
Arkaprava Roy
Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India
Siba Prasad Datta
Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India
Mandira Barman
Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India
Debasis Golui
Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India
Somnath Bhattacharyya
Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur, Nadia, West Bengal 741252, India
Mahesh Chand Meena
Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India
Viswanathan Chinnusamy
Division of Plant Physiology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India
Suchitra Pushkar
Division of Plant Physiology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India
Punyavrat S. Pandey
Education Division, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi 110012, India
Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman
Global Centre for Environmental Remediation (GCER), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
We investigated the effect of practically realizable doses of silicate on arsenic (As) uptake by differential-As-accumulating rice cultivars grown on geogenically As-polluted soil. The possible health risk from the dietary ingestion of As through rice was also assessed. In addition, a solution culture experiment was conducted to examine the role of root-secreted weak acids in differential As acquisition by rice cultivars. When grown without silicate, Badshabhog accumulated a much smaller amount of As in grain (0.11 mg kg−1) when compared to the other three varieties. Satabdi, IR-36, and Khitish accumulated As in grain beyond the permissible limit (0.2 mg kg−1) for human consumption. The application of silicate effectively reduced the As content in the grain, husk, and straw of all of the cultivars. The grain As content fell to 17.2 and 27.6% with the addition of sodium metasilicate at the rates of 250 and 500 mg kg−1, respectively. In the case of Khitish, the grain As content was brought down within permissible limits by the applied silicate (500 mg kg−1). The integrated use of low-As-accumulating cultivars and silicate has great potential to reduce the public health risks associated with As. A positive correlation between root-secreted total weak acid and grain As content could explain the different rice cultivars’ differential As acquisition capacity.