Assessing the Influence of Soot on the Nutritional and Phytochemical Profiles of Plant Species in Asari-Toru, Rivers State, Nigeria

This study was designed to investigate the effects of black soot on the Nutritional and phytochemical properties of plants exposed to it, following the fear that black soot may have direct and indirect effects on vegetation when airborne or buried in the soil. To this end, samples of the plants (cassava and melon) cultivated under the black soot prevalent condition and samples of a control that is cultivated in an environment not exposed to black soot, were analyzed to assess their proximate and phytochemical contents. The results of the proximate analyses that was conducted on the cassava and melon samples cultivated in black soot contaminated soil and the control (cassava and melon) cultivated in black soot free soil reveal that: the effects of black soot is on the proximate composition increased the moisture content (3.98/15.35 - 6.73/24.35%), crude protein (2.74/3.73 - 3.13/4.65%), and fats and oil (8.68/4.89 - 12.15/14.93%) compositions and decreased the ash content (0.41/0.27 - 1.15/0.56%), crude fibre (0.05/0.43 - 0.08/0.57%), and carbohydrate (26.38/9.09 - 30.05/14.00%) compositions of the crops (cassava/melon respectively). Likewise, the effects of the black soot on the phytochemical content of the crops increased the flavonoids(122.21/70.65 - 201.20/106.82 mg/100g), phenolics(92.92/50.46 - 120.00/68.43 mg/100g) and alkaloids (13.15/44.53 - 21.18/71.80 mg/100g); and the decreased the saponins (3.40/7.49 - 2.55/5.45 mg/100g), terpenoids(3.37/4.03 - 1.24/2.05 mg/100g), tanins(3.21/6.01 - 2.90/4.51 mg/100g) and stilbenes(199.10/279.02 - 143.01/205.52 mg/100g) contents of the crop pair. Hence, black soot had both negative and positive effects on the Nutritional and phytochemical contents of the plants