Towards Green Remediation: Metal Phytoextraction and Growth Analysis of Sorghum bicolor Under Different Agronomic Management

The role agronomy plays in the management of phytotechnologies is a significant example of the answers that the agrosciences can offer to the issues of society in the field of Green Remediation. This paper reports a study designed to test how the principles of classical plant growth analysis can be used in the field of phytoremediation. In the framework of a phytoremediation field trial set up in Torviscosa (Udine, Italy), Sorghum bicolor was grown receiving mineral fer-tilization, organic amendment, or neither as control. Crop growth was examined following classical functional growth analysis. Leaf area index (LAI), relative growth-rate (RGR) and shoot to weight ratio (SWR) showed how plants be-haved in response to the treatments. Sorghum bicolor showed a poor potential for phytoremediation under our experi-mental conditions. However, some parameters of classical crop growth analysis resulted potentially useful also in the field of phytoremediation.