Title: A comparative analysis of cyanide content in common C3 and C4 plants ash

Authors: Lu-Lu Yu; Ying-Jie Ma; Tian-Tian Zhang; Fei-Fei Li; Fei Xu

Addresses: Center for Applied Biotechnology, Wuhan University of Bioengineering, Wuhan, 430415, China ' Center for Applied Biotechnology, Wuhan University of Bioengineering, Wuhan, 430415, China ' Center for Applied Biotechnology, Wuhan University of Bioengineering, Wuhan, 430415, China ' Center for Applied Biotechnology, Wuhan University of Bioengineering, Wuhan, 430415, China ' Biotechnology Research Center, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, 443002, China

Abstract: Cyanide is well known as a highly toxic substance and is widely present in nature. Plant ash is also rich in cyanide, but its function in plants is rarely reported. This study used C3 and C4 plants to investigate the effects of burned plant ash and its cyanide extract on tomato seed germination. The results showed that the germination of tomato seeds was affected by different plant ash with great differences, among which soybean (C3 strain) and corn (C4 strain) straw ash had the best-promoting effect. In addition, all cyanide extracts from C3 and C4 straws were shown to promote tomato seed germination at lower concentrations, whereas the opposite effects were observed at higher concentrations. Notably, the content of cyanide in C4 plant ash was generally higher than that of C3 plants. The findings in this study provide new insights into further analysis of the function of cyanide in C3 and C4 plants in the future.

Keywords: cyanide; C3 plants; C4 plants; plant ash; seed germination.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2023.137969

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2023 Vol.72 No.2/3/4, pp.87 - 98

Received: 04 Oct 2022
Accepted: 22 Sep 2023
Published online: 15 Apr 2024 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article