Macro- and micro- plastics in soil-plant system: Effects of plastic mulch film residues on wheat (Triticum aestivum) growth.

By Y. Qi, Xiaomei Yang, A. M. Pelaez, E. Huerta Lwanga, N. Beriot, Henny Gertsen, P. Garbeva, Violette Geissen. Science of the Total Environment, 2018

932 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Plastic residues have become a serious environmental problem in the regions with intensive use of plastic mulching. Even though plastic mulch is widely used, the effects of macro- and micro- plastic residues on the soil-plant system and the agroecosystem are largely unknown. In this study, low density polyethylene and one type of starch-based biodegradable plastic mulch film were selected and used as examples of macro- and micro- sized plastic residues. A pot experiment was performed in a climate chamber to determine what effect mixing 1% concentration of residues of these plastics with sandy soil would have on wheat growth in the presence and absence of earthworms. The results showed that macro- and micro- plastic residues affected both above-ground and below-ground parts of the wheat plant during both vegetative and reproductive growth. The type of plastic mulch films used had a strong effect on wheat growth with the biodegradable plastic mulch showing stronger negative effects as compared to polyethylene. The presence of earthworms had an overall positive effect on the wheat growth and chiefly alleviated the impairments made by plastic residues.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/164da13d70e9884ebe60155014633cd418c0f83d

How researchers see this paper

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In Biomaterials

1. A. Lehmann
2. J. Bergmann
3. A. Wulf
4. Linshan Feng
5. E. Leifheit
6. Matthias C. Rillig

In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

1. A. Lehmann
2. J. Bergmann
3. A. Wulf
4. Linshan Feng
5. E. Leifheit
6. Matthias C. Rillig

In Pollution

1. A. Lehmann
2. J. Bergmann
3. A. Wulf
4. Linshan Feng
5. E. Leifheit
6. Zhijie Zhang
7. Lisa Gutbrod
8. Anna Brumer

Citations in the corpus

• Microplastic fiber and drought effects on plants and soil are only slightly modified by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (2020, background): “There is evidence that plant performance is affected by microplastics, often positively (Machado et al., 2018b), but also negatively (Qi et al., 2018; van den Berg et al., 2020), likely as a function of the identity and traits of the material added.”
• A microplastic used as infill material in artificial sport turfs reduces plant growth (2020, background): “So, there is a clear need to test the ecological consequences of plastic pollution in terrestrial ecosystems (Rillig, Lehmann, Souza Machado, & Yang, 2019; de Souza Machado, Kloas, Zarfl, Hempel, & Rillig, 2018).”