Investigation of heavy metal pollution in Actinidia deliciosa (A. Chev.) C. F. Liang & A. R. Ferguson (Actinidiaceae)

In this study, Actinidia deliciosa (A. Chev.) C. F. Liang& A. R. Ferguson (Kiwi) which is a significant increase in production in recent years and cultivated in a large part of the Eastern Black Sea Region was selected as research material. These samples were collected from four traffic localities and four non-traffic localities from Ordu and Rize provinces which were selected as research material. Leaf and fruit samples were taken in May, June, July, August, September, October and September, October months from mentioned localities, respectively. Traffic intensity factor investigated whether causes heavy metal pollution on the kiwi plant. For this purpose, heavy metals analyses were conducted in collected leaf and fruit samples. The mature kiwi leaves and fruits after drying in the oven at 65 º C was milled porcelain mortar and was ready for analysis of heavy metals. Soil samples were brought into the air dried and was made ready for analysis after passing through from 2 mm sieve. Samples which are prepared for analysis was transferred into liquid medium by wet burning (firing) methods and then heavy metal values were read in the ICP-OES device. Results were evaluated using the SPSS program. According to the obtained data, it was statistically important differences in leaves, fruit and soil samples depending on the traffic factor. However, all the discussed heavy metal concentrations are below of the normal range in both the leaves and the fruit. According to these results, a kiwi plant is not possible to use as a bioindicator species. It was found that traffic intensity is not caused the heavy metal stress on kiwi plants. In addition, heavy metal concentrations in leaves are higher than fruits. Key words: Actinidia deliciosa, heavy metal, kiwi, traffic intensity.