Imaging of radiocesium dynamics in soybean by using a high-resolution gamma camera

Yin, Y.-G.; Kawachi, Naoki; Suzui, Nobuo; Ishii, Satomi; Yoshihara, Toshihiro*; Watabe, Hiroshi*; Yamamoto, Seiichi*; Fujimaki, Shu

Large areas of agricultural fields were contaminated with radiocesium (Cs and Cs) in Japan by the accident of The Tokyo Electric Power Company Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in March 2011. Many agricultural studies, such as fertilizer management and plant breeding, are undertaken for reducing radiocesium uptake in crops or enhancing of uptake and transportation via phytoremediation. These studies examine the control of radiocesium transport into/within plant bodies from the viewpoint of plant physiology. Radiotracer imaging is one of the few methods that enable the observation of the movement of substances in a living plant, like a video camera, without sampling of the plant tissues. In this study, we performed the imaging of Cs uptake and transport from root to aerial part by using a new gamma camera in intact soybean plants because contamination of soybean by radiocesium has currently become a major problem in agriculture in Fukushima.