PERFORMANCE OF MUCUNA PRURIENS VAR. VERACRUZ FOLLOWING POLLUTION WITH PETROLEUM PRODUCTS

Abstract

Petroleum products are derivatives of crude oil with long chain hydrocarbon. The fate of an event of spilling of these derivatives in an ecosystem dominated by a natural colonizing nitrogen fixing leguminous plant: Mucuna pruriens is the emphasis of this study. Petroleum products (Petrol: Premium Motor Spirit – PMS; Diesel: Automobile Gasoline Oil – AGO and Kerosene: Dual Purpose Kerosene – DPK) on the performance of velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens var. Veracruz) was experimented in the Botanical Garden of the department of Plant Science and Biotechnology, University of Port Harcourt. The petroleum products used as treatments which were Treatment 1: control – no pollutant was introduced, treatment 2:  1000ml of PMS, treatment 3: 1000ml of DPK; treatment 4: 1000ml of AGO; treatment 5: 500ml of PMS + 500ml of DPK; treatment 6: 500ml of PMS + 500ml of AGO; treatment 7: 500ml of DPK + 500ml of AGO and treatment 8: 333ml of PMS + 333ml of DPK + 333ml of AGO and. these treatments were replicated six times making it forty- eight potted bags containing 30kg of soil each. Reduction in the growth and development of plant was observed in the polluted treatments as against the control (non – polluted treatment) as a result of deleterious effect of the petroleum products on the morphological parameters (plant height, number of leaves and leaf area) tested for. The fresh and dry weights of plants in the polluted treatments were also lower than the control. Statistical (p ≤ 0.05) evidence and visual rating reveals that treatment 5 (PMS and AGO) had the best growth amongst the polluted treatments while treatment 3 (diesel) affected the plants growth negatively. Conclusively, the presence of nodules in the roots of velvet bean made the soil to recover fast but the introduction of petroleum products on the growth and development of Velvet bean should be avoided.