Towards Green Remediation: Metal Phytoextraction and Growth Analysis of Sorghum bicolor under Different Agronomic Management

The role agronomy plays in the management of phytotechnologies is a significant example of the answers that the agrosciences can offer to the issues of society in the field of Green Remediation. This paper reports a study designed to test how the principles of classical plant growth analysis can be used in the field of phytoremediation. In the framework of a phytoremediation field trial set up in Torviscosa (Udine, Italy), Sorghum bicolor was grown receiving mineral fertilization, organic amendment, or neither as control. Crop growth was examined following classical functional growth analysis. Leaf area index (LAI), relative growth-rate (RGR) and shoot to weight ratio (SWR) showed how plants behaved in response to the treatments. Sorghum bicolor showed a poor potential for phytoremediation under our experimental conditions. However, some parameters of classical crop growth analysis resulted potentially useful also in the field of phytoremediation.