This is not the first time sunflowers have come to the rescue in radioactive situations. Many were planted around the Chernobyl site to extract cesium from nearby ponds. Residents of Fukushima today are also experimenting with planting sunflowers next to vegetables in their personal gardens, hoping they will suck up all the toxins and they can begin to grow again.
Via msnbc
Images the watchers
…brighten the hillside of FukUshima.
Japan, excellent in planning and implementation
I love sunflowers, but they don’t “soak up radiation.” When they take up radioactive materials, the radiation doesn’t disappear. If the sunflowers are composted (or their seeds are eaten) the radiation returns to the ecosystem. They need to be harvested and disposed of.
(This is different from the use of plants to absorb organic toxins such as hydrocarbons. In those cases, the plants may absorb and break down the compounds, rendering them nontoxic. But they can’t make radiation go away.)
This use of plants (“phytoremediation”) is useful and potentially beautiful, but you gotta know what you’re doing.
A very interesting article about sunflowers. How long is the crop time for a sunflower? How many rotations of sunflower crops will it take to clean up the soil? Will the soil ever be safe for human consumption of vegetables or rice? In refrence to above comment, what hapopens to the sunflower crop when harvested? Are the destroyed in an incinerator? It would be good to follow up on this story with facts and results. Thank You