Preliminary investigations to assess the usefulness of Be-7 as a radiotracer in soil covered by vegetation [Activities of the Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Laboratory, Seibersdorf]

Different factors may affect the extent of radionuclides' interception by plants and therewith their inventories in soil covered areas. In particular, there is interest in assessing the impact of the vegetation factor for different soil coverage conditions, when using 7Be as radiotracer of soil redistribution in cropped farmland. Our results suggest that 7Be foliar interception of bean plants is likely to affect the radionuclide inventories and their spatial uniformity in covered soil. Reliable results on short-term erosion using 7Be can be obtained in cropped farmland with limited cover, but only when taking into account the interception factor. The impact of the interception factor is highly dependent on rainfall intensity and duration, crop species and the growing stage of the plants. Further investigations into these variables are required