Abstract
The study was performed to investigate the effects of gaseous imission of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen fluoride on the growth of rice plant under stressed field conditions. The plants were cultivated in normal paddy fields where are 88 industrial plants operating with 285 smoke stacks emitting pollutants. There has been a number of reported studies (1, 3, 11, 19, 20) which deal with rice plant damages by air pollution under a simulated exposure experimental condition. Furthermore, these experiments were conducted to examine effects of a single pollutant on the plant. Furthermore, these experiments were conducted to examine effects of a single pollutant on the plant. In korea, however, there is no study reported in literature with respect to the in-situ dose-response relationship between rice pant reduction in yields and air pollution. This study is specifically dealt with multiple effects of sulfur dioxde and hydrogen fluoride on various plant growth indicators such as leaf damage, culm height, weight of grain, panicles per hill, spikelets per panicle and percent fertility.It appears that there is a good correlation between ambient concentrations of sulfur oxides and sulfur contents found in leaves with an average correlation coefficient of 0.868 within a 1% significance level. It is interesting to note that a better multiple correlation was found between percent leaf damage and sulfur and fluoride contentd found in leaf with a significance of 1% level. The yearly correlation coefficient ranges from 0.963 to 0.987 with an average being 0.971. It is, therefore, believed that a percent leaf damage may serve as a single indicator of pollutional damages to rice plant cultivating in fields. Regarding other factors to the diminution of rice plant growth in polluted atmosphere, it appears that a significant correlation to culm length and dry weight of grain with a 1% significance level whereas T/R ratio has a good correlation with lead damage within 5% significance level. An evaluation of data observed has demonstrated that both panicles per hill and percent fertility are significantly affected by air pollutants. As expected, hydrogen fluoride has more effects than sulfur oxide. It is, however, interesting to note that spikelets per panicles has slightly been affected while no indication of effects on 1000-grain-weight has been observed. This may lead to a conclusion that a reduction in yield of rice under polluted field conditions may have more been caused by the diminution of panicles per hill and percent fertility rather than by the diminution of spikelets per panicle and grain weight.