An Experimental Approach to the Reclamation of a Limestone Quarry Floor: The First Three Years

Abstract

‘Three-inch [7.5 cm] crusher-run’ limestone proved entirely suitable as a substratum for the rapid establishment of pioneer vegetation on a quarry floor, but only with the addition of fertilizers. A manure derived from sewage and an NPK fertilizer mixture proved suitable additives. A grass variety (Festuca rubra var. fallax Hack.) was sown, and became established on the substratum treated with either additive. Immigrant mosses soon became dominant in a grass/moss community on the manured substratum, whilst F. rubra retained its ascendancy on the NPK-treated material. The moss-dominated community was not attractive to Rabbits, whereas the grass-dominated community proved attractive to these animals which are accepted as beneficial for conservation in this particular context.Further observations are required to assess (a) whether the by-passing of a cryptogamic stage in the prisere encouraged by the NPK mixture is a worthwhile objective, (b) whether the observed dominance of mosses encouraged by manure will be broken by F. rubra, and (c) whether the establishment of desirable immigrant species occurs differentially between the treatments. Meanwhile a perceptible degree of rehabilitation within three years may be claimed as a result of treatments producing a total plant cover of between 40% and 70%.

Wildlife and Reclamation Ecology: Rabbit Middens on Seeded Limestone Quarry-spoil

“…of 'much evidence of territorial importance of latrines'. But their frequent presence on anthills (Thomas, 1963;Williams et al, 1974), their occurrence on molehills (Southern, 1940), and their tendency 'to appear along popular runs, on bare much-frequented ground, tree stumps and similar viewpoints, or in hollows into which they have blown or rolled' (Lockley, 1961), and among grass seedlings that have been subjected to certain fertilizer treatments (Dixon & Hambler, 1984;Hambler & Dixon, 1986), suggests that their locations are sometimes based initially on physical and/or chemical features of the habitat. Three imitation middens made in the Summer of 1990 by transferring several hundred pellets to level patches, showed slight stimulation of the vegetation by winter.…”

Suitability of rhizobia-inoculated wild legumes Argyrolobium flaccidum, Astragalus graveolens, Indigofera gangetica and Lespedeza stenocarpa in providing a vegetational cover in an unreclaimed limestone quarry

“…The role of legumes in reclamation of colliery spoil (Bloomfield et al ., 1982 ;Jeffries et al ., 1981b ;Johnson et al ., 1982 ;Palmer et al ., 1986), china clay waste (Dancer et al ., 1977 ;Skeffington and Bradshaw, 1980), copper mines (Wu and Kruckeberg, 1985), limestone quarry floor (Dixon and Hambler, 1984) and in the improvement of hill land pastures (Young et al ., 1986) have already been demonstrated . However, in all these studies a limited number of temperate pasture legumes have been used whereas the use of the wild legumeRhizobium symbiosis has been mainly restricted to the improvement of productivity in marginal lands (Babu et al, 1993 and references therein) .…”

Coexistence, Stress, and Catastrophe, in Grassy Vegetation Established in a Hard-limestone Quarry

“…The experiment commenced in the autumn of 1979 (see Dixon & Hambler, 1984), when sets of five two-metressquare plots were sown with a tufted cultivar, 'Cascade', of the grass Festuca rubra, each set receiving a different treatment (see Appendix for a nomenclatural adjustment, and for notes on treatments).…”

“…A multiple-plot experiment to suggest techniques for establishment of vegetation on the floor of a hard-limestone quarry in North Yorkshire, England, UK (National Grid Reference SD 809649) has been reported on previously (Dixon & Hambler, 1984;Hambler & Dixon, 1986).…”