Study finds washing effectively removes lead from vegetables grown in urban soil
All unwashed lettuce grown in high-lead soils had lead levels above government standards.
By Adityarup Chakravorty, American Society of Agronomy
PHYS Org
Aug 23, 2022
Excerpt:
Egendorf is the lead author of a new study that shows washing lettuce grown in urban gardens can remove most lead contamination. The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Quality, a publication of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.
Urban gardeners grow a wide variety of crops. This study focused on lettuce because predicting lead levels in leafy greens—like lettuce—can be tricky.
“Leafy greens often have intricate surfaces,” says Egendorf. These surfaces can trap lead-containing soil particles that may be hard to wash off. “We really didn’t know if washing lettuce could effectively remove contaminated soil.”
Egendorf and her colleagues grew lettuce in an urban community garden in Brooklyn, New York and in a rural field site in Ithaca, New York. The lettuce was grown in soils containing either high or low levels of lead. The researchers tested different washing strategies: rinsing with tap water, soaking in water, soaking in vinegar, or soaking in a commercial vegetable wash solution.
Read the complete article here.
