Evaluation of Initial Growth and Respiration of Various Plants for Revegetation of Dumping Sites in Closed Mine

For revegetation of mine dumping sites, introduction of tolerant plant species to tailings is needed. We compared initial shoot growth of the plants grown in tailings with that of control plants grown in Kanuma pumice to evaluate the tolerance to tailings among various species; one crop species, ine (Oryza sativa L. cv. Nipponbare); three revegetation species, yomogi (Artemisia princeps), medohagi (Lespedeza cuneate G. Don), and creeping red fescue (Festuca rubra L.); and two native species, mizudokusa (Equisetum fluviatile L.) and susuki (Miscanthus sinensis). The growth of the plants grown in tailings was significantly lower than that of control plants for ine, yomogi, and medohagi, but not for mizudokusa and susuki. We evaluated whole-plant respiration of ine, yomogi, and mizudokusa, and did not observed significant difference between the plants grown in tailings and control plants; however, Fe concentration in roots was significantly higher in the plants grown in tailings in all of the evaluated species. It is probable that the high Fe accumulation caused by tailings induces reduction of growth for crop and revegetation species, while does not affects native species because of their tolerance to high Fe concentration. Effective use of native plants may help revegetation of the dumping site.