Abstract
Laboratory and greenhouse studies were conducted on several forage grasses, bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon), creeping red fescue (Festuca rubra), Kentucky 31-tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), oat (Avena sativa), orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata), perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), triticale (X. triticosecale Wittmack), and winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) grown on three Alabama acid mine spoils to study heavy metal accumulation, dry matter yield and spoil metal extractability by three chemical extractants (Mehlich 1, DTPA, and 0.1 M HCl). Heavy metals removed by these extractants were correlated with their accumulation by several forage grasses. Among the forages tested, creeping red fescue did not survive the stressful conditions of any of the spoils, while orchard grass and Kentucky 31-tall fescue did not grow in Mulberry spoil. Sorghum followed by bermudagrass generally produced the highest dry matter yield. However, the high yielding bermudagrass was most effective in accumulating high tissue levels of Mn and Zn from all spoils (compared to the other grasses) but did not remove Ni. On the average, higher levels of metals were extracted from spoils in the order of 0.1 M HCl>Mehlich 1>DTPA. However, DTPA extracted all the metals from spoils while Mehlich 1 did not extract Pb and 0.1 M HCl did not extract detectable levels of Ni. All of the extractants were quite effective in determining plant available Zn from the spoils. For the other metals, the effective determination of plant availability depended on the crop, the extractant, and the metal in concert.
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Taylor, R.W., Ibeabuchi, I.O., Sistani, K.R. et al. Heavy metal concentration in forage grasses and extractability from some acid mine spoils. Water Air Soil Pollut 68, 363–372 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00478463
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00478463