Lead (Pb) is toxic like other heavy metals for both plants and animals exceeding after a certain level of concentration. Now a days different crops are affected by lead badly, especially near city areas. However, how can we protect it for plants?
Not long ago we used leaded gasoline and all plants near a road or highway were "poisoned " by high levels of lead. I used to take soil samples near highways and the level of lead was high to very high (some people thought we found a lead mine!).
This lead contamination has stopped, however, it is impossible to remove the lead from the soil or plants. All one could do is stop using leaded gasoline.
I have recommended using lime to raise the soil pH, precipitate lead and keep it from going into groundwater. We had some rifle ranges, and we had been using this and also looked into recycling the lead. This would be hard to do for lead gas spills. If you can contain and control chemical spills into a confined area, cat litter can sometimes be a good absorbent that can be replaced and deposited in hazardous waste site. I am not sure either approach would be good for crops. Keeping city runoff from agricultural crops might also help reduce contamination, or use vegetated or forested filter strips to absorb city runoff and protect or at least lower contaminants reaching crops. There may be some grasses that can absorb pollutants and can be removed in cuttings periodically.
The best way to protect plants from lead contamination is through monitoring of pollution sources. Once the pollution is reduced to barest minimum, plants can have less or minimal concentration of heavy metals.
As suggested earlier, monitoring and controlling pollution sources of lead is very important. If that is not possible then grow plants in raised beds filled with an uncontaminated growing medium or grow plants far away from busy roads or polluted city areas.
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