Accumulation of cadmium in pumpkin plants depending on the variety and its concentration in precipitation

Pumpkin is grown in various regions of our country, where favorable soil and climatic conditions exist for this. The fruits of this plant have valuable nutrients and many medicinal properties. However, in recent decades, in the Krasnodar Territory, where much attention is paid to this crop, for well-known reasons, intensive contamination of agricultural plants with heavy metals has been observed.. The aim of the work is to determine the accumulation of cadmium in a pumpkin plant, depending on the variety and its concentration in atmospheric precipitation. Experimental data were obtained on meadow-chernozem soil of rice crop rotation in 2020 – 2022. In the experiments, the cultivation technology generally accepted for the Krasnodar territory was used. The research involved varieties of pumpkin plants – Marbled, Prikubanskaya and Chamomile. The aerial application of the CdSO4 solution was performed during the pumpkin flowering phase at concentrations of 1 MPC and 5 MPC. In the course of research, it was revealed that among the studied pumpkin varieties, the Chamomile variety differs in the greatest accumulation of cadmium. The content of the studied chemical element in the stem of the Chamomile variety turned out to be higher than in the stem of the Marbled and Prikubanskaya varieties when applying a solution in 1 MPC by 12 and 22%, respectively, when applied in 5 MPC, by 20 and 36%, respectively. The leaves of the Chamomile variety contain more cadmium than in the Marbled and Prikubanskaya varieties, when applying a solution of 1 MPC, respectively, by 21 and 28 %, when applied in 5 MPC, respectively by 24 and 30 %. In the experiment, the greatest accumulation of cadmium in pumpkin fruits was found for the Chamomile variety – when applying a solution of 1 MPC, the excess over the Marbled and Prikubanskaya varieties was 1,4 and 1,8 times, respectively, when applied in 5 MPC, 1,4 and 2,2 times, respectively. The cadmium content in pumpkin seeds of the studied varieties was insignificant, almost at the control level.