o:32705 Phytoremediation abilities of species from the Festuca genus Fitoremedijacione sposobnosti vrste iz roda Festuca en ABSTRACT The term phytoremediation refers to the sowing of plants that have the ability to grow in devastated areas. The aim of growing these plants on such substrates is to remove or stabilize pollutants in the ecosystem. Phytoremediation is a method of removing various pollutants, both organic and inorganic in origin. It offers a significant advantage over other remediation methods due to its relatively low investment requirements. Festuca species, with their strong fibrous root system and rapid growth of aboveground biomass, are ideal candidates for phytoremediation. The aim of this paper is to review the available literature and summarize the results of our research on the uptake of heavy metals in the organs of plants of the genus Festuca. The study focused on 3 species of the genus Festuca: red fescue (Festuca rubra), tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) and meadow fescue 50 (Festuca pratensis). Our studies, conducted in pots in 2021 and 2022, found that Festuca arundinacea had the highest initial growth and the best above-ground biomass yield on substrates such as flotation tailings compared to the other two species. It was also concluded from these studies that the addition of organic fertilizer to the substrate contributed to increased growth performance in all three species tested, while plants fertilized with mineral NPK fertilizer and a combination of mineral and organic fertilizers showed significantly lower biomass yields. Therefore, the addition of organic material is recommended to improve the physical properties of tailings. The largest part of the heavy metals taken up by the substrate plants accumulates in the roots, while a significantly smaller part is transported to the above-ground organs. Therefore, these plants can be classified as heavy metal excluders. Phytoremediation, excluders, pollutants, heavy metal, Festuca species 2024-02-06T08:03:10.882Z 44 yes 46 Snežana Brajević University of Belgrade, Faculty of Agriculture, Serbia 0009-0008-7964-8235 Aleksandar Simić University of Belgrade, Faculty of Agriculture, Serbia person Gordana Andrejić University of Belgrade, Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy INEP, Serbia doktor nauka-ekološke nauke person 0000-0002-5515-9321 Željko Dželetović University of Belgrade, Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy INEP, Serbia doktor biotehničkih nauka-oblast ratarstva person 0000-0001-9166-7094 application/pdf 1811265 https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:32705 no yes 16 70 92000004 11A33 11A29 11A2906 "The Environment-research, charge, administration"-Craiova, Romania, 2023 University of Craiova, Faculty of Agronomy 2023