This dissertation was written as part of the MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and
Business at the International Hellenic University.
Food insecurity has become a prominent problem in the modern world, and it has
become even more severe due to the anthropogenic pollution of soils with toxic heavy
metals. There have been many different strategies proposed to clean up
contaminated soils. One of the proposed strategies is the use of hyperaccumulator
plants, which are plant that have the ability to absorb and retain large quantities of
heavy metals, cleaning up the soil, through a process known as phytoremediation. One
of the main hyperaccumulator plants is Brassica napus, also known as oilseed rape.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the different aspects of oilseed rape as a
phytoremediation agent of heavy metals from soil.
For this to happen we conducted a systematic review and analysis of the available
literature from the last 10 years (2010-2020), through the search engine Scopus. A
total of 74 studies were included. These studied were separated in different groups,
based on the subject they were dealing with. This groups included, variation between
oilseed rape cultivars, comparisons with other hyperaccumulator plants, effects of
heavy metals, tolerance and accumulation mechanisms, effectiveness of different
amendments, the role of symbiosis and presence of heavy metals in the final products
of oilseed rape. The results of this study indicate a strong interest in the use of oilseed
rape in phytoremediation efforts as it is a quite effective way to clean up soils.
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