# Absorption-Translocation of Veterinary Antibiotics in Rice Plants Introduced with Irrigation Water
## 4 Conclusions  
The consistent increase in the usage of VAs in agriculture and their unintentional disposal in soil have raised huge concerns for the safety of plant and human health. The current findings contribute to a better understanding of the absorption-translocation and phytotoxicity of VAs in rice plants under field conditions. The absorption-translocation of VAs into plants was directly proportional to the concentration and frequency of VAs supplemented with paddy irrigation water. In addition, significant variations in the uptake capacities of the roots, stems, and grains of rice plants indicated tissue-specific absorption. The bioaccumulation of VAs in rice plants significantly varied depending on the particular class of antibiotics. Furthermore, soil residues of VAs were evident in the experimental plots, with the highest concentration being CTC, followed by OTC and AMX. In the future, it will be interesting to decipher the relationship between antibiotic dilution and hormetic effects in plants. Overall, plant uptake of these VAs could be a risk to food safety.  
Figure 6: Changes in rice grain yield by treatment. The bars represent the standard error. The letters A-1, A-2, A-3, B-1, B-2, B-3, C-1, C-2, and C-3 are described in Table 2. Different letters in a column (a, b) are significantly (\(p\) < 0.05) different according to [PERSON]’s multiple range test.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Treatment**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**AMX**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**CTC**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**OTC**} \\ \cline{2-10}  & **Root** & **Stem** & **Brown Rice** & **Root** & **Stem** & **Brown Rice** & **Root** & **Stem** & **Brown Rice** \\ \hline C-1 & 0.008 & 0.005 & 0.000 & 0.047 & 0.067 & 0.013 & 0.051 & 0.049 & 0.003 \\ C-2 & 0.024 & 0.018 & 0.005 & 0.043 & 0.063 & 0.014 & 0.046 & 0.044 & 0.003 \\ C-3 & 0.023 & 0.014 & 0.018 & 0.026 & 0.075 & 0.018 & 0.052 & 0.045 & 0.004 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* AMX: amoxicillin, CTC: chlorotetracycline; OTC: oxytetracycline; A-1, A-2, A-3, B-1, B-2, B-3, C-1, C-2, and C-3 are described in Table 2.  
\end{table}
Table 3: _Cont._  
**Author Contributions:** Visualization, resources, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition, and writing--review by J.Y.C. Resources, investigation, formal analysis, and data curation by H.S.J. Resources, supervision, and methodology by I.-H.S. Conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, software, data curation, writing--original draft preparation, writing--review and editing by V.H.D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
**Funding:** This study was supported by research funds from Jeonbuk National University in 2022 and also funded by the Cooperative Research Programs for Agricultural Science and Technology Development (Project No. PJ015716032023), Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.  
**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study did not require ethical approval.  
**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.  
**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.  
**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.