Magister Scientiae - MSc (Biotechnology) / Soybean have been listed as a priority commodity crop in South Africa (SA) and
provide a good source of protein to the population. Therefore, soybean has been
earmarked as an important food security crop and strategies are currently being
discussed at governmental level to increase and sustain soybean production.
However, the SA landscape poses many challenges to the agricultural sector such
as prolong drought periods, flooding, nutrient poor soils, saline soils and heavy
metal contaminated soils. Heavy metal (HM) contamination is becoming a serious
concern and is aggravated by historical mining in SA. Indeed, SA has established
itself as the number one ranked mining country in the world and is frequently
mining metals such as chromium, vanadium, gold, zirconium, platinum, and
antimony. Prolong rainfall near mining areas leads to acid mine drainage which
lowers the soil pH to approximately two. These highly acidic soils will solubilize
the metals and cause the metals to leach into river systems as well as the water
table leading to increase heavy metal contamination in nearby soil sites. This
increase metal content negatively affects seed germination and overall plant
development. Nonetheless, plants have evolved numerous internal mechanisms
that help them to survive HM toxicity; by either avoiding or tolerating the stress.
Two stress-activated pathways that help the plant tolerate stress have attracted
much interest i.e. the glyoxalase system and reactive oxygen species (ROS) -
antioxidant system as they detoxify methylglyoxal (MG) and ROS. / 2021-08-31
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/6265 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Ndlovu, Linda Esihle |
| Contributors | Keyster, Marshall |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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