The addition of inorganic phosphate fertilizers to soil and crops is a common practice for
increasing crop production in worldwide. The fertilizers in soil causes an increase in the
radionuclides content along with the essential nutrients that can transfer from soil to
various parts of plants. The aim of this work is to measure the alpha activity from various
part of radish plant. The measurement of alpha activity was performed by track etch
technique using LR-115 detectors. The results show that the alpha track density from lower
part of leaves is higher than that from upper part. The alpha track density from upper and
lower part of leaves varied from 12 ± 1.9 to 40.8 ± 1.9 tr cm2 and 16 ± 2.2 to 51.3 ± 3.3
tr cm2 respectively while it varied from 45 ± 4 to 135 ± 4 tr cm2 for edible part of plants.
With age of plants the radionuclide contents continuously get accumulated in the different
part of plant and hence increase in alpha track density was observed during present work.
The track density for plants grown with phosphate fertilizers was found to be higher
compare to organic and urea fertilizers.