Short Rotation Intensive Culture of Willow, Spent Mushroom Substrate and Ramial Chipped Wood for Bioremediation of a Contaminated Site Used for Land Farming Activities of a Former Petrochemical Plant

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the bioremediation impacts of willows grown in short rotation intensive culture (SRIC) and supplemented or not with spent mushroom substrate (SMS) and ramial chipped wood (RCW). Results did not show that SMS significantly improved either biomass production or phytoremediation efficiency. After the three growing seasons, RCW-amended S. miyabeana accumulated significantly more Zn in the shoots, and greater increases of some PAHs were found in the soil of RCW-amended plots than in the soil of the two other ground cover treatments’ plots. Significantly higher Cd concentrations were found in the shoots of cultivar ‘SX61’. The results suggest that ‘SX61’ have reduced the natural attenuation of C10-C50 that occurred in the unvegetated control plots. The presence of willows also tended to increase the total soil concentrations of PCBs. Furthermore, we found that many contaminant concentrations were subject to seasonal oscillations, showing average increases throughout the whole experimental site after a growing period, while showing significantly different variations, such as lesser increases or even decreases, after a dormant period. These observations suggest that contaminants may have leached or degraded faster in untreated conditions, and conversely to have mobilized towards trees through water flow driven by plant transpiration during growing seasons.