Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 22 ISSUE 3
Written by Elena BONCIU, Elena ROȘCULETE, Cătălin Aurelian ROȘCULETE, Aurel Liviu OLARU

Among all the environmental factors, soil is the most stable component, due to its solid physical state. Soil is the basis of all food chains and terrestrial biodiversity. Therefore, a clean, unpolluted soil means reversing the decline of biodiversity, providing healthy agricultural raw materials, protecting human and animal health, etc. Pesticides are a broad group of chemicals commonly used in agriculture. Even though the impact on crop production is obviously profitable, pesticide residues are a common cause of soil pollution, especially in developing countries. Higher plants are recognized as excellent genetic models to detect environmental mutagens and are frequently used in environmental pollution monitoring studies. The objective of this paper was to determine the potential of the species Allium cepa to be used in biological tests for monitoring environmental pollution with herbicides. For this purpose, the biological material consisting of meristematic roots of A. cepa was exposed for 24 hours to the treatment with different doses of two types of herbicides, namely: 0.125, 0.200, 0.250 g/L for Pendimethalin and 0.225, 0.250 and 0,300 g/L for Aclonifen respectively. The obtained results show the sensitivity of the species A. cepa to the tested herbicides by the drastic reduction of the mitotic activity in the cell cycle and by the appearance of a large number of chromosomal aberrations in the mitotic cells. From this point of view, the use of the Allium biological test can contribute to optimization of the methods of monitoring the chemical pollution of soil with herbicides.

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