Uppfångning och kvarhållning av 134Cs och 85Sr i olika växtutvecklingsstadier

Sammanfattning: Emissions of radionuclides to the atmosphere can lead to wet deposition on plants in theevent of rainfall. An increased level of radioactivity in the plants may occur due tointerception and retention of the radionuclides. If the content of the plants is above thethreshold limit value, entire yields may have to be destroyed. In order to preventcontamination or decrease the content countermeasures can be taken. The impact of thebiomass, leaf area index (LAI) and growth stage of the plant on the interception andretention is important to know in order to decide which countermeasures to use.Weather may also be an important factor. In this work the interception and retention of 134Cs and 85Sr by spring wheat, ley andspring oil-seed rape was studied. The impact of the biomass, LAI and growth stage ofthe plant and precipitation after deposition was also studied. The work was conducted asa field study with plots of the size 1 x 1 m. The plants were wet deposited with 134Cs and 85Sr by using a rain simulator. A total activity of 40 kBq/m2 for both radionuclideswas deposited on each plot. Depositions were performed during four different growthstages and the plants were sampled approximately four hours, one and five days afterdeposition. Activities of the dried plant samples were measured with a High PurityGermanium (HPGe) detector. Finally the interception fraction and the retention factorwere calculated. The study showed that the interception fraction was highest for the third growth stagefor both wheat and oil-seed rape; dough ripeness for wheat and ripening for oil-seedrape. Ley, which was harvested after two depositions, had the highest interceptionfraction at the second growth stage, flowering. Oil-seed rape and ley seemed to have aslightly higher interception fraction for 85Sr at all growth stages. There was a positiverelationship for the biomass and interception fraction, for the LAI and interceptionfraction the relationship wasn’t significant. The retention showed a weak trend ofdecreasing with time, with the decrease being largest during the first day after theinterception. However, the standard deviation was large and consequently the values uncertain.