| Summary: | The impact of mining has lead to the generation of a large amount of spoil dumps that has become dangerous to human health, wildlife and biodiversity. Thus it is essential that the post mining areas and waste land generated need to be rapidly vegetated. Vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides (L.) Roberty) is a tropical plant which grows naturally in various soil conditions and is well known for its ability to resist DNA damage while growing on typically polluted soil conditions. The spoil dumps from the iron mine site is unstable and inhospitable for plant growth due to presence of various toxic heavy metals like - Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb, Ni, Cr, Cd etc. Vetiver system is an efficient bio-engineering tool for reclaiming such spoil dumps. There are 12 known species of Vetiver grass, and many hundreds of different cultivars that are exploited by users depending on need. In the present study we selected the polyploid infertile variety of vetiver and carried pot experiments. Vetiver plants grown on the iron ore mine spoil dump show distinct differences in their growth with fewer numbers of tillers, reduced chlorophyll content, upregulation of antioxidant enzymes and increased proline content. To investigate the level of DNA damage incurred and change in the genetic stability Comet assay and RAPD analysis were performed. Results confirmed that Vetiver grass can serve as a model species for phytoremediating the iron ore mine spoil dumps.
|
|---|