Investigation of selenium using soil and plant samples from a long-term field experiment

The potentially dangerous chemical compounds and elements, eg. selenium in relatively high concentration can cause harmful influence and results in the environment. The fate of selenium must be followed in the soil-plant system. Slow or accumulative changes in environment may be captured only by longterm studies. To monitor the dynamics of selenium, its transformation into different forms, retention and movement in the soil-plant system, a heavy-metal-load field experiment was set up in Nagyhörcsök (Hungary) in 1991. The aims of the research programme in the above experiment were to study the behaviour of different elements (eg. selenium) in soil, its effect on soil life, the uptake by and transport within the plants and effects on the quantity and quality of the crop. Soil and plant samples from the above field experiment were analysed using an OPTIMA 3300DV inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) and Thermo Elemental inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). Acknowledgement: The authors would like to express their thank to Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA T38450, T042534).