Can radon get into veggies or fruit?

I have a friend getting a house that has a radon problem.  That's mitigateable but she wondered about the veggies in her future garden.  Does anyone know of any testing or info about if radon gets "into" the veggies and/or could cause problems for food safety?

I doubt it.

Radon is a huge, heavy gas.  The plants would have to be sitting on the floor of the lowest level of the house, meaning the basement, for the gas to get near the plants for absorption to take place.  Being huge, the gas would have problems with permeability.  The half-life of radon is just a little under 4 days, so radon won't really accumulate.  I suppose one could try placing a test in a little baggie along with some sample veggies to see if anything happens, but my bets are that there is no to very minimal radon in any veggies.

Eric

Right, I re-read this and realized that plants were to be planted outside (of course!).  But the same applies.  Radon becomes a problem in basements where it can pool for a time before decay.  I doubt that radon is going to linger in the upper layers of the soil.

And if she is still concerned, then this would be an awesome place for a raised bed garden.

Eric

Thanks Eric!

So Radon is a problem when it collects inside a space (Such as a closed room or house) for a users health. This is through inhalation of radon gas that causes negative effects.

There has been a few studies on garden vegetables collecting radon from the environment and it was found that it is a non-issue. There might be small amounts of concentration in vegetable tissue but not to a level that risks ill effect.

So I just did a quick Google search and found that if the veggies were to have a radon problem, the veggies themselves would probably be struggling to grow, show wilting leaves, and other maladies.  That being said, apparently there are some plants that can accumulate some radon, but it will decay quickly.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308814623009810#:~:text=Radon%20gas%20is%20produced%20from,chain%20for%20humans%20and%20animals.

This source mentioned above is interesting, but I can't verify its objectivity.

Eric