Abstract:
Potato is well-known species and most important vegetables in household consumption
and for commercial purpose. Hence, this was designed to determine some
physicochemical properties and concentrations of heavy metals copper (Cu), lead (Pb),
iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn) in soil samples used for
cultivation of potato in West Shoa Zone (Mugno Witete, Maru Gombo , and Maru
Konbolcho) in Ethiopia were determined. The results obtained revealed that the mean
heavy metal concentrations for Cu, Fe, Zn, Mn,, Cr, Pb, and Cd were 25.79 -
47.89 mg/kg, 298.73 - 831.02 mg/ kg, 19.52 - 441.88 mg/kg, 0.59 -32.15 mg/kg, 6.78 –
37.93 mg/kg, 0.89 - 57.7 mg/kg, and 2.16 - 12.60 mg/kg, respectively. In general, the
levels of metals in soil collected from all the sampling sites were found to be decreased in
the order of: Fe > Mn > Zn > Cu > Pb > Cd. The limit of detection LOD values for all
metals that were analyzed by the AAS and ranges from 0.016 mg/L to 1.340mg/L for
potato samples and from 0.0012 mg/L to 0.096 mg/L for soil samples and the limit of
quantification (LOQ) values for all metals analyzed in this study ranges from 0.004 to
0.074 mg/Kg. The % RSD values obtained for soil and potato samples were ranged
between 0.008 ( in Fe) to 13.56 (in Mn) for all the metals, which were all under the
required control limits (≤15%) . These results indicate that the analytical method used
was precise and reliable. The results obtained revealed that all the recovery values of
soil and potato samples were within the designated acceptance range of 80 % – 120 %
for metal analysis. These results reveal that the proposed method was accurate. In
generally, from this study it could be concluded that all metals analyzed in both soil and
potato samples were below permissible level except Cd and Cr . Therefore, the soils
studied were not harmful for cultivation of potato and other agricultural purposes.
