sunflower

Environment campaigners in Japan are asking the public to plant sunflowers to help decontaminate the soil of whatever radioactive material that seeped through the ground. The sun flower is the one of the city flowers of Kitakvushu, Japan also.

The secret is in a scientific technique called Phytoremediation. Phytoremediation (from the Ancient Greek (phyto, plant), and Latin remedium (restoring balance or remediation) describes the treatment of environmental problems (bioremediation) through the use of plants that mitigate the environmental problem without the need to excavate the contaminant material and dispose of it elsewhere.

Phytoremediation refers to the natural ability of certain plants called hyper accumulators to bio accumulate, degrade, or render harmless contaminants in soils, water, or air. Contaminants such as metals, pesticides, solvents, explosives and crude oil and its derivatives, have been mitigated in phytoremediation projects worldwide. Many plants such as mustard plants, alpine pennycress and pigweed have proven to be successful at hyper accumulating contaminants at toxic waste sites.

 As sunflower‘s root structure is so dense and strong, so able to extract heavy metals such as arsenic and lead. Even the radioactive element can also be absorbed, including uranium and stronium-90 that can cause genetic mutations in humans.

The massive earthquake and tsunami left more than 23,000 people dead or missing on Japan’s northeast coast and crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant that has leaked radiation into the environment since.

so Japan requested all volunteer donate sun flower seeds so that they might grow in that affected area and then the flowering material further be discard off as further if that material eaten by living organisms harmful by them and further it would be enter in food chain via plant to small animals and birds to further human.

Almost 10,000 packets of sunflower seeds at 500 yen ($6) each have so far been sold to some 30,000 people, including to the city of Yokohama near Tokyo, which is growing sunflowers in 200 parks, according to japanses local media. Fukushima city officials sowed sunflower seeds Wednesday at a plaza in the city as part of efforts to remove radioactive materials from the soil. And the 6,000-square-meter plaza, located on a hillside about 1 kilometer away from the prefectural government offices, is one of the so-called “hot spots” where radiation levels are sporadically higher than other areas.

 This is cheapest method and not required much money as in other traditional methods. The plants can be easily monitored and we get back natural habitat in pure conditions. But main dis advantage is that it required too much patience and time because natural growth takes time and sunflower is an annual flower giving plant.

To grow best, sunflowers need full sun. They grow best in fertile, moist, well-drained soil with heavy mulch. Growing sunflowers is not as difficult as it might seem, with a few considerations taken into account. Importantly, you need to plan where you plant your sunflowers because they will need full use of the sun during the entire day to grow successfully.

Many people grow sunflowers close to walls since the sunflower can be quite sensitive when it comes to the wind, being such a tall plant with a relatively thin stem. But planting close to a wall will unfortunately come at a loss in the amount of sunlight available to the sunflower.

In the end nature always correct our mistakes, so we hoping best everything would be fine soon.