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96 M. Mleczek et al.

5.5 Conclusion

Efficiency of plant growth depends on a lot of different factors and one of them that
is able to significantly limit plant growth is the presence of heavy metals. The
influence of heavy metals depends both on the kind of metals and their concentra-
tion in soil and also soil conditions (form of element presence in environment). Soil
is an integral part of the environment and it influences plant development, indepen-
dently of its contamination level. The presence of heavy metals and nutritional
elements can significantly modify their accumulation (interaction), as well as
stimulate/inhibit plant growth. For this reason, in the phytoremediation process a
significant aspect is not only to determine the level of heavy metal contamination
but also to analyse selected soil parameters, especially when we are interested in
significant heavy metal accumulation connected with high biomass production. In
our opinion, knowledge about polluted soil chemistry is especially important in the
biomass aspect, which is one of the most interesting parts of studies in the 10 last
years, as regards the increased energy requirement.

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