Mulberries as dynamic accumulators

  This is a new subject to me, but i have found that mulberries are called accumulators and so good for the garden and the explaination i have invented for this is that they accumulate nitrogen and maybe other usefull minerals and then when their leaves drop they leave  plenty of usefull minerals on the surface of the soil. They could, with their long roots, accumulate the nutrients the rain water had washed deep into the soil. so a good thing.

  On the other hand plants that pick up poisonouse substances like aliminium and so could be good for cleaning sites with too much of this mineral are also called accumulators and their leaves could have a less positive effect on the soil in my garden unless i knew about their capacity and gathered the leaves and stored them in a safe place so as to reduce the aliminium on my land.
  It seems to me that some care is needed with plants said to be accumulators, the question is, of what. agri rose macaskie.

Phyto=remediation using hyperaccumulators has been used quite a bit.  It has a lot of limitations for cleaning up contaminated sites but it is effective in certain circumstances.  Typically it is used in conjunction with other techniques to reduce various heavy metal concentrations in soils.

The plants used for remediation are often refered to as hyperaccumulators, because they remove hundreds to thousands of milligrams of the particular compound per kilogram of dry biomass.  There are a handfull of plants that do this well and are usually specific to one or a couple metals.  There are some plants like several mustards and willows that extract a wide range of metals.

I would hesitate to intentionally employ accumulators to try to "clean up" your land unless you have specific information that you have a problem.  Even then, it can take a very long time and/or a lot of biomass to make significant change.  For the most part, the potential hazard comes from eating large quantities of the accumulators.  If you have a varied diet and your body is capable of processing metals normally, I wouldn't worry about it.

The term "dynamic accumulators" is also commonly used.  Robert Kourik in his book "Designing and maintaining your edible landscape naturally" accumulated a three page list of accumulators from a variety of sources.  I am not sure about the accuracy.  It includes things like Dock, Dandelion, Nettle, Comfrey, Thistle, as well as other common weedy species.

I know Moringa is considered a dynamic accumulator, and is used to clean up polluted areas. We have a spot that was poorly chosen for garbage disposal on campus nearby our current agronomy student garden, and right smack dab in the middle of where the agronomy project is supposed to expand to.

I'm working to convince the leadership of the urgency of moving the location as soon as possible, far away from the gardens. Then we'll clean as much as possible, and plant moringa and vetiver densely to pull up what it can and hopefully create a barrier to lock in any toxins away from the gardens, keeping a good swath between the (possibly) contaminated area and the planting area.

Blows my mind how such a thing escaped them when they put the dump there. . .