Plant, herb

Odontarrhena chalcidica (Janka) Španiel, Al-Shehbaz, D.A.German & Marhold

Yellowtuft

A serpentine brassica, known in the literature as Alyssum murale, that hyperaccumulates nickel. It is the reference crop of nickel agromining: grown on ultramafic soils, harvested, and the metal recovered from the ash.

Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0

How it works

Mechanisms: hyperaccumulationphytoextraction
Native range: Ultramafic (serpentine) soils of the Balkans, including Albania

Contaminants

Contaminant	Evidence	What was shown
Nickel	field	Five years of trials in Albania on an ultramafic Vertisol: with fertilisation and sowing, biomass yield rose from 0.3 to 9.0 t/ha and nickel extracted from 1.7 to 105 kg/ha (Bani et al. 2015). With manure, 145 kg Ni/ha in a later trial (Bani and Echevarria 2019). In a temperate climate, on Austrian serpentine, up to 55 kg Ni/ha (Rosenkranz et al. 2019). Bani et al., Improving the agronomy of Alyssum murale for extensive phytomining: a five-year field study, Int. J. Phytoremediation 17:117, 2015 Bani and Echevarria, Can organic amendments replace chemical fertilizers in nickel agromining cropping systems in Albania?, Int. J. Phytoremediation 21:43, 2019 Rosenkranz et al., A nickel phytomining field trial using Odontarrhena chalcidica and Noccaea goesingensis on an Austrian serpentine soil, J. Environ. Manage. 242:522, 2019

Contaminant

Evidence

What was shown

Nickel

field

Five years of trials in Albania on an ultramafic Vertisol: with fertilisation and sowing, biomass yield rose from 0.3 to 9.0 t/ha and nickel extracted from 1.7 to 105 kg/ha (Bani et al. 2015). With manure, 145 kg Ni/ha in a later trial (Bani and Echevarria 2019). In a temperate climate, on Austrian serpentine, up to 55 kg Ni/ha (Rosenkranz et al. 2019).

Limits

The high yields come from ultramafic soils naturally rich in available nickel, in a Mediterranean climate; on Austrian serpentine yields were lower (20–55 kg Ni/ha) (Rosenkranz et al. 2019; Hipfinger et al. 2021). It needs fertiliser and weed control. It is a metal-recovery technique more than a clean-up one: how it performs on industrially contaminated soils is not covered by the sources consulted.

Where it has been tried

Pojskë, ultramafic Vertisol (nickel agromining)

PhytoremediationField scale, 2005–

Odontarrhena chalcidica (Alyssum murale)

Bani (Agricultural University of Tirana) with Echevarria, Sulçe and Morel (Nancy) first fertilised wild stands on six 36 m² plots in 2005, then ran five years of trials on 18 m² plots on harvest time, fertilisation, weed control and sowing.

Outcome In 2005 nickel extracted was 25 kg/ha on fertilised plots against 3 kg/ha on the others; plants held up to 9,129 mg/kg of Ni. Over five years, with the crop sown and fertilised, biomass rose from 0.3 to 9.0 t/ha and nickel extracted from 1.7 to 105 kg/ha.