A comparison of techniques used to estimate the amount of resuspended soil on plant surfaces.

The objectives of this study were to compare four common techniques used to estimate soil mass loadings on plant surfaces and to assess the need to account for particle-size distributions of both the soil tracer and contaminant of concern within the soil. Soil loadings (g soil kg-1 dried plant) from split samples collected in a pasture near Chernobyl were estimated using soil tracers of plutonium analyzed via alpha spectroscopy (mean +/- standard error; 1.0 +/- 0.

Influence of combined alpha, beta and gamma radionuclide contamination on the frequency of waxy-reversions in barley pollen.

The mutagenic effectiveness of chronic, combined alpha-, beta-, and gamma-irradiation caused by radionuclide contamination of the biogeocenosis was studied in comparison with chronic gamma-irradiation from an external 60Co source. The waxy-test on barley pollen proved to be sufficiently sensitive to evaluate the increase in waxy-reversion frequencies in plants exposed to a 3 mSv dose. A dose of 50-200 mSv from external irradiation was needed to double the mutation rate in barley pollen.