For characterization of the ability of crops to reflect changing soil properties after the addition of ameliorative materials into the soil both pot and rhizobox experiments were provided. In the pot experiment, the influence of the addition of lime and limestone into contaminated Cambisol containing 7.14 mg Cd/kg, 2174 mg Pb/kg, and 270 mg Zn/kg on element availability for spring wheat was tested. The ameliorative materials were added into the pots containing 5 kg of soil in amount of 3 g CaO, and 5.36 g CaCO 3 per kg of the soil. Soil pH reached up to 7.3 in lime treatments compared to 5.7 in control soil. Mobile portion of soil elements (0.01 mol/l CaCl 2 extractable) dropped by 80% for Zn, 50% for Cd, and 20% for Pb, respectively. In both straw and grains of wheat reduced content of elements was observed in limed pots compared to the control ones. For a detailed characterization of the influence of root exudates on the strength of developed complexes in comparison with the bulk soil, short-term rhizobox experiment was set up under identical soil and lime treatments. Generally, the results of rhizobox experiment confirmed the findings from the pot experiment discussed above. Content of elements in shoots and roots of wheat dropped mainly in the case of Cd and Pb. Soil mobile portion of all three tested elements introduced clear depletion curve in control treatment, both limed treatments showed high stability of element complexes almost unaffected by wheat roots.

The Příbram region belongs to the most polluted areas in the Czech Republic. Atmospheric deposition of potentially toxic elements from lead smelter represents the main source of contamination in this region. In this study, the most polluted location intensively used for agriculture situated northeast from the source of contamination was investigated. The individual sampling points were positioned by GPS and representative samples were taken from 0-60 cm split into three 20 cm layers. In the soil samples total Pb and Cd contents, plant available contents of these toxic elements and soil pH were determined. The total Cd content at the investigated site reached up to 13 mg/kg and Pb up to 2500 mg/kg in the top layer. The concentration of both elements decreases with depth and in the 40-60 cm layer the maximum content of only 6 mg Cd/kg and 400 mg Pb/kg was found. The plant available the content of Pb and Cd in the soil is related to the pH value. The correlation coefficient of exponential regression for Cd is -0.799 and for Pb is -0.787. The obtained data was processed by Surfer 7 so�ware resulting in digital maps of horizontal and vertical contamination of this location. This observation confirmed the airborne source of soil contamination. However, some of the individual sampling points suggested local geogenic contamination of the soil where more detailed further research is required.