“…The ability of Cd to enter plants depends on a number of biotic and abiotic factors including plant species (Grant et al, 2008), microbial activity (Gao et al, 2010), soil pH (Mann & Ritchie, 1993;Peijnenburg et al, 2000), soil organic matter (Murray et al, 2010), cation-exchange capacity (Bolan et al, 2003a(Bolan et al, , 2003b, presence of chelators, e.g., organic acids (Cieśliński et al, 1998), presence of competing or complexing ions (Gao et al, 2011), and amounts of total and plant-available Cd in the soil (Carbonell et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2006). Translocation of Cd within the plant depends on three major transport processes: passive and/or active uptake of Cd into the root (Cataldo et al, 1983;Zhao et al, 2002), xylem transport from the roots to the shoots (Uraguchi et al, 2009) and translocation to the seeds via phloem (Tanaka et al, 2007).…”