Trial site, Murlo, Toscana, Italy

Murlo, suoli serpentinitici

A serpentine outcrop in the province of Siena. The soil's nickel is natural: this is not a contaminated site, but the place of a field trial of nickel extraction with plants (phytomining).

Phytoremediation

Nickel

Contaminants

Metals

Nickel

Plants and fungi at this site

PhytoremediationField scale

Alyssum bertolonii

Robinson, Chiarucci, Brooks and colleagues fertilised experimental plots of natural stands of the hyperaccumulator Alyssum bertolonii for two years, under several N, P and K regimes.

Outcome The best fertiliser treatment (N+K+P) tripled biomass, to 9.0 t/ha, without diluting nickel in the tissue. With 0.8% Ni in dry matter (11% in the ash) the authors estimate a yield of 72 kg/ha of nickel. It is an estimate from plots, not a farm-scale harvest.

Nickel

Robinson et al., The nickel hyperaccumulator plant Alyssum bertolonii as a potential agent for phytoremediation and phytomining of nickel, Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 1997

From the literature

Species that acted on one of this site's contaminants in at least one study. The list is automatic and takes no account of this site's soil, concentrations or climate.