Valorising South-West Banat Copper Mine Tailings in Agriculture

摘要

The paper presents data regarding the chemical material of the material from the Sasca Montana mining in Caras-Severin County (South-West Romania). The mine tailings are stored in thousands of tonnes in landfills that are a source of pollution for the locality and the environment. This residual material contains important amounts of micro-elements (copper, zinc, cobalt, boron, manganese, molybdenum, magnesium, etc.) and macro-elements (calcium, magnesium, sulphur) and is not radioactive. The high content of calcium as well as the fact that flotation was made with basic elements support the idea of using this alkaline material in agriculture. The paper presents harvesting results obtained through the application of different rates of mine tailings on winter wheat and grain maize. Results show that in winter wheat applying the mine tailings on a soil fertilised with N 50-150 P 80 K 80 produced harvesting growths of 23% in the variant treated with 1 t/ha mine tailings, 36% in the variant treated with 2 t/ha mine tailings and 43% in the variant treated with 3 t/ha mine tailings. In grain maize, after applying mine tailings on a soil fertilised with N 50-150 P 80 K 80 the harvesting growth was 23% in the variant treated with 1 t/ha mine tailings, 37% in the variant treated with 2 t/ha mine tailings and 51% in the variant treated with 3 t/ha mine tailings. Research was carried out on a moderately gleyed brown eumesobasic soil on medium fine, clayish-dusty/clayish limey fluvial deposits with basic reaction in the arable horizon with a pH 5.78 and humus 2.37%.