Thread: Sunflowers to Clean Radioactive Soil In Japan

Sunflowers to Clean Radioactive Soil In Japan

By Toru Yamanaka | AFP News | Fri, Jun 24, 2011

“Campaigners in Japan are asking people to grow sunflowers, said to help decontaminate radioactive soil, in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed March's massive quake and tsunami.

Volunteers are being asked to grow sunflowers this year, then send the seeds to the stricken area where they will be planted next year to help get rid of radioactive contaminants in the plant's fallout zone.

The campaign, launched by young entrepreneurs and civil servants in Fukushima prefecture last month, aims to cover large areas in yellow blossoms as a symbol of hope and reconstruction and to lure back tourists.

"We will give the seeds sent back by people for free to farmers, the public sector and other groups next year," said project leader Shinji Handa. The goal is a landscape so yellow that "it will surprise NASA", he said.

The massive earthquake and tsunami left more than 23,000 people dead or missing on Japan's northeast coast and crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant that has leaked radiation into the environment since.

Almost 10,000 packets of sunflower seeds at 500 yen ($6) each have so far been sold to some 30,000 people, including to the city of Yokohama near Tokyo, which is growing sunflowers in 200 parks, Handa said.

Handa - who hails from Hiroshima, hit by an atomic bomb at the end of World War II - said the sunflower project was a way for people across the nation to lend their support to the disaster region.

"This is different from donations because people will grow the
flowers, and a mother can tell her children that it is like an act of prayer for the reconstruction of the northeast," Handa said.

‘I also hope the project will give momentum to attract tourists back to Fukushima with sunflower seeds in their hands. I would like to make a maze using sunflowers so that children can play in it.’ "

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/sunflowers-...114840850.html
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I think that the sunflower has a magical element to it that destroys contamination but it could also reinvigorate the soil while cleansing it of any radioactive much like the work that good farmers do to rotate their crops to replenish soil in certain areas of our globe.

Along with the sight of fields of sunflowers, it must be an uplifting experience to the Japanese who withstood a giant earthquake and followed by a huge tsunami to see those fields of giant sunflowers beckoning their arrival to a once devastated area.

Wow..

Will that work or will the sunflowers grown in Japan have trace radioactivity?

so is this just symbolic or do sunflowers actually have the potential to decontaminate radioactive soil?

Very cool if it actually works....I have my doubts though....

I read somewhere once that radioactivity makes plants really take off right after the ground is contaminated.

It last about two years if I remember correctly.

I'll keep my kids as far away from contamination as possible.

I see no magical element in sunflowers that reduce contamination.
But they are real pretty.

Originally Posted by politicalcenter

I read somewhere once that radioactivity makes plants really take off right after the ground is contaminated.

It last about two years if I remember correctly.

I'll keep my kids as far away from contamination as possible.

I see no magical element in sunflowers that reduce contamination.
But they are real pretty.

Let's wait and see............

Originally Posted by Margot

Let's wait and see............

I did a little "homework" on it and it seems that sunflowers do take some radiation out of the ground and out of the water and store it in the sunflower plant.

Well I'll be.

That's a pretty good idea.

On many farms where crops are rotated, you will find areas of sunflowers that are grown to clean and replenish the soil on a regular basis. This sunflower theory has been used by the earliest settlers to keep the soil fertile for planting. Cannabis plants have also been used.


Helianthus sp.

"February 1996, Phytotech, Inc., a Princeton, NJ-based company, reported that it had developed transgenic strains of sunflowers, Helianthus sp., that could remove as much as 95% of toxic contaminants in as little as 24 hours. Subsequently, Helianthus was planted on a styrofoam raft at one end of a contaminated pond near Chernobyl, and in twelve days the cesium concentrations within its roots were reportedly 8,000 times that of the water, while the strontium concentrations were 2,000 times that of the water. Helianthus is in the composite, or Asteraceae, family and has edible seeds. It also produces an oil that is used for cooking, in margarine, and as a paint additive. H. tuberosus was used by Native Americans as a carbohydrate source for diabetics."

http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botan...rticle_10.html

The experiment failed as the sunflowers removed only .05 percent of the radioactive cesium in the ground and removing the top two inches of soil proved to be more effective due to the severity of radioactive contamination in Fukushima but the sunflower theory cannot be dismissed altogether.