Active permanent greening – a new slope greening technology based on mineral solubilizing microorganisms

Abstract

IntroductionWith social and economic development and the associated large-scale exploitation of natural resources, the number of slopes has significantly increased. As slope instability can lead to serious geological disasters, the ecological protection and reconstruction of slopes has become a hot topic of common global concern.MethodsIn order to achieve scientific slope management and overcome the difficulty of maintaining slope greening in the long term, this study explored eight strategies (A, B, C, AB, AC, BC, ABC, CK), involving different patented mineral solubilizing microorganisms (MSMs), and analyzed the field application of active permanent greening (APG) based on MSMs.ResultsThe results revealed that MSMs significantly increased the content of effective metal ions and available nutrients in soil and enhanced soil enzyme activity. Among all strategies, strategy A showed significant superiority, with soil effective calcium, magnesium, potassium, nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter contents increasing by 51.62%, 55.41%, 30.42%, 39.77%, 181.69% and 76.92%, respectively, while urease, sucrase and peroxidase activities increased by 89.59%, 74.68% and 85.30%. MSMs strongly promoted the growth of Amorpha. Strategy A showed the best performance, with plant seedling height, ground diameter, leaf area, root length, and root volume increasing by 95.75%, 47.78%, 124.14%, 108.83%, and 139. 86%, respectively. According to a comprehensive evaluation using the entropy-analysis hierarchy process, strategy A has great potential for application. The field test results verified that APG has significantly better greening performance than the traditional greening method, with high vegetation cover and stable soil layer.DiscussionThe results of this study provide a reliable practical basis and technical reference for the development, promotion, and application of APG.

Mineral solubilizing microorganisms and their combination with plants enhance slope stability by regulating soil aggregate structure

“…Jia et al further investigated the screened microorganisms and found that a variety of MSMs could promote root growth, increase root strength, increase the number of root nodules, and affect the number and species of inter-root microorganisms (Jia et al, 2021) on the nitrogen cycling with extremely significant effects (Li C. et al, 2020;Li et al, 2021a;Li et al, 2021b). In addition, we conducted a series of optimization studies on slope spraying substrates, including water retention agents (Wang L. et al, 2022), comprehensively analyzed and ranked the effects of different treatments, and preliminarily applied the MSM-based APG method (Wang L. et al, 2023). The results showed that APG was an effective and feasible slope greening method, with great application value and broad application prospects.…”

“…Given the great potential of microorganisms in the revegetation of slopes, we proposed an active permanent greening (APG) method based on selected mineral solubilizing microorganisms (MSMs) (Wang L. et al, 2023). We isolated a variety of microorganisms from the dolomite rock wall of the Mufu Mountains, Nanjing, and selected four typical strains (Jinchi et al, 2014;Guanglin et al, 2015;Jinchi et al, 2015a;Jinchi et al, 2015b) for use in slope management after preliminary experiments on cultivation and solubilization mechanisms.…”