What is plant tissue analysis? Is it a helpful tool to identify toxic elements in plants?

Question

Plants avail their food mostly from soil where it grows. If such soil has some kind of level of toxicity due to human error or carelessness during building constructions, waste disposals, etc. certainly the edible plant that thrives in that toxic soil is not healthy to eat.

Answer 1

1) Plant tissue analysis is the process of analyzing an ash sample from a plant in order to determine if the plant is getting the proper nutrients during it's growth or that phase of it. Though it can be used for other things, it generally isn't used to find toxins. There are other tests for that and they involve testing the soil, not the plant.

2) General construction will not be an automatic assumption of contamination. Avoid planting near (or using in your garden area) pressure treated or preserved lumber as the materials that keep it from rotting is CCA (chromated copper arsenate). These are poisons and heavy metals and work threw their being toxic; they will leach into the soil solution and contaminate plants. Avoid areas where freshly painted wood surfaces would shed their rain runoff into food planting beds. Power blasting/ cleaning/ washing solutions (industrial house siding cleaners and the like) should be looked at on a case by case basis to determine what products are used and how safe they are. Soaps in general are alright in limited amounts in the soil (except for the organic purist) but you don't want them on your salad if they are sprayed directly on plants. Soaps have some basic nutrients, especially phosphorus, but detergents are chemicals and need to be looked at closely.

3) Areas that have a lot of runoff, like streets and parking lots that drain onto soil areas should not be used without a close examination. The MOST POLLUTED WATER you will find will be that runoff from parking lots and paved streets. It is high in fecal coliform bacteria and chemicals to include petroleum based products and is nasty beyond belief.

4) Plants live on their soil solution, the nutrients in suspension in the water of their environment, not directly on the soil itself. That is what makes determination tricky. If you are willing to pay the cost, take a soil sample to a lab if you are unsure and have it tested. The lab will guide you threw choices to make. If you have concerns that are specific and if someone has broken the law by polluting the environment, let someone know at your town hall.

Answer 2

since white ash is made up of inorganic elements, then probably you can use it to test for some toxic elements taken up by that plant...However, this analysis is not complete by itself..You must have complex chemical testings to detect presenceof those substances.