You may pay a visit to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16729579

karbassi

@Fredrick. I think it will be good to first profile the pesticide residues in the contaminated soil, then it will be easy to source flora for phytoremediation.

Dear colleague,

Much of the phytoremediation has focused on using prairie grasses. Typical studies involve the plants being exposed to field-collected soils from contaminated sites such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Please see the relevant recent works:

 Albright, V.C., III, I.J. Murphy, J.A. Anderson, J.R. Coats. 2013. Fate of atrazine in switchgrass-soil column system. Chemosphere 90(6):1847-1853.

Murphy, I.J. and J.R. Coats. 2011. The capacity of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) to degrade atrazine in a phytoremediation setting. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 30: 715-722.

Henderson, K.L., J.B. Belden and J.R. Coats. 2007. Mass balance of metolachlor in a grassed phytoremediation system. Environ. Sci. Technol. 41: 4084-4089

Arthur, E.L., P.J. Rice, P.J. Rice, T.A. Anderson, S.M. Baladi,   K.L.D. Henderson, and J.R. Coats. 2005. Phytoremediation – An overview. Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 24: 109-122. 

Belden, J.B., T.A. Phillips, and J.R. Coats. 2004. Effect of prairie grass on the dissipation, movement, and bioavailability of selected herbicides in prepared soil columns. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 23: 125-132.

You can also found in the two attached files usefull data on bioremediation and phytoremediation of pesticides.

Best regards

Pr. N. Soltani

Clement has given a good starting point because one has to know pollutants present to be able to decide on the best plant to use. Some plants can remove some pesticides.

Dear Dorcas,

Thanks for your response. The pesticide in question is  glyphosate.

Cheers.

You can try phragmites, i know a consultant company who had already using this plant to treat pesticide contaminated groundwater. According to them, it works.

Dear Fredrick,

More specifically it will depend upon the type of contamination in the soil, In general you can use the Leucaena leucocephala, Jatropha curcas, Ricinus communis, Withania somnifera, Spinacia oleracia for the better uptake of the pesticide from contaminated soil.

For more detail kindly go through the following link.

Good Luck.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014765131400356X

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-013-1808-5

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11368-009-0085-x#page-1

Lemna minor for glyphosate removal

In the paper "Potential Use of Lemna Minor for the Phytoremediation of Isoproturon and Glyphosate " by Olette et al., 2011.....the authors conclude that

"When using L. minor for phytoremediation, glyphosate concentration decreased 8% in the medium of the control without plant and they observed an additional 11% disappearance in presence of plants, after 4 days. After 96 h of exposure, the removal rate was 53.2 µg.g−1 FW"

Article Potential Use of Lemna Minor for the Phytoremediation of Iso...

Dear Fredrick U Mbanaso

Poplars (Populus spp.) are the most suitable plants for phytoremediation of pesticide contaminated soils.

Please also have a look at these useful RG links and PDF attachments.

Article Phytoremediation of Chlorpyrifos by Populus and Salix

Article Phytoremediation of atrazine-contaminated soil using Zea mays (maize)

Article Potential for Plant-Based Remediation of Pesticide-Contamina...

Article Assessment and comparison of phytoremediation potential of s...

Good luck!