PHYSICOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS, HEAVY METAL AND IONS IN SOIL AND VEGETABLE SAMPLES FROM WANDALI, KUSAR LOCAL GOVERNMENT, BORNO STATE,NIGERIA

Pollution and contamination of farm produce especially vegetables hasgreatly increase in recent years. Farmer engage in high application of agrochemicals with aim of improving crop yield and reducing hard labor duringfarming. This chemicals are usually applied without any professionaladvice, following application specification or having due knowledge on thedanger of the chemicals to humans. This has led to a great increase inpollution of agricultural soil and consequently contaminated vegetable andplants through absorption from the soil. In this study, we investigatedpollution of soil and vegetable by heavy metals and ions using AtomicAbsorption Spectroscopy (AAS) and UV Visible Spectrophotometer.Results from this study show that leaves of vegetable possess the highestlevel of heavy metals and ions. Among the metals determined, Fe showedthe highest concentration with values ranging from 23.02 μg/g to28.09μg/g,while Pb indicates the least concentration with values ranging from 0.2μg/g-0.8 μg/g. The concentration of ions was also found to be high withvalues as follows; Na+10.921 μg/g to 19.21 μg/g, K+ 16.70 μg/g to 37.11μg/g, Ca 2+ 4.94 μg/g to 15.47 μg/g, NO3- 1.07 μg/g to 5.05 μg/g and SO42-7.52 μg/g to 13.90 μg/g. generally the concentration of this metals and ionsin vegetables is in the order of leaves>stem>root, while the concentration insoil is in the order of 20-30cm, 10-20cm>0-10cm. the concentration of thismetals and ions were found to be higher than the recommended limit withsignifies contamination of the soil and vegetables.

Keywords:

Physicochemical Characteristics , Heavy Metals , Ions , Soil , Vegetables , Kwaya-Kusar , Borno State