Study on the Effect of the Copper Tailing Substrate with Different Treatments on the Growth of Tall Fescue (Festuca arundinacea)

Abstract

The copper sulphide mining process would produce a large number of copper tailings that can be treated with different substrates so as to act as guest soil in the ecological reclamation of the mine. In order to reveal the influence of different copper tailing treatment substrates on plant growth, in this experiment, tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) was planted under potted conditions for the purpose of exploring the effect of different exogenous substrates such as conditioning agents, sulfurized modified straw, effective microorganisms (EM), and high-density sludge (HDS) sediment on tall fescue height, biomass, chlorophyll, catalase (CAT) activity and Cu2+ transport under copper tailings substrate. Then, the results showed that the combined application of different exogenous substrates (conditioning agents, EM, sulfurized modified straw, and HDS sediment) reduced the pH of the copper tailing substrate to varying degrees, with a decrease of 5–21%. Moreover, compared with the control group and other treatments, the combined treatment of conditioning agents, sulfurized modified straw, and EM has a significant impact on the biomass, plant height, chlorophyll content, CAT activity, and other physiological indicators of tall fescue and can effectively reduce Cu2+ that is toxic to tall fescue in copper tailing.