Growing Cannabis In Plain Sand

Cpappa27

Cpappa27

Well-Known Member
curious2garden said:
If you do a deep dive into Dr. Mittledier those are the type of studies and his peers he founded his work on and worked with. If you do a deep dive into Ag Texts and science of the 40s and 50s you should find his work.

Essentially my point to you was pure sand is too dense a medium. He cut it with sawdust. I don't have a good source of sawdust but I did have plenty of coco/perlite so I repurposed it. But sand will work. It is simply another inert, soilless medium that will provide denseness but you also need a lightener to the mix such as vermiculite or perlite. I'd go with less sand and lean more toward a finer perlite/vermiculite. Definitely coarser than the sand but smaller than the xlarge type perlite I mix with light coco pith.

I hope this help. I've always loved gardening and the science behind it but I admit I have a fairly black thumb LOL
Click to expand...
I wish I thought of this like 3 months ago I would have done this with dozens of plants outdoors and tomatos to test different sands, mixes, additives, etc with the sand. I love the sand idea though, no weeding the garden and if I level it right I can water super fast. I wonder if flood and drain would work with sand?

I can get sawdust easily. I wonder what the nutrient value of the sawdust is in the sand or does it even break down since theres no real microbes in there?
 
C

conor c

Well-Known Member
Depends what you growing i bet any landrace like proper morrocan bedia etc or even maybe Sinai thats used to rocky soils would take to it better than other types i would think
 
Cpappa27

Cpappa27

Well-Known Member
conor c said:
Depends what you growing i bet any landrace like proper morrocan bedia etc or even maybe Sinai thats used to rocky soils would take to it better than other types i would think
Click to expand...
Perhaps so, Im sure something that has evolved to grow in it may do better. I havent stopped looking into this since I made this thread. Its so interesting. Carrots grown in sand grow huuugeee.
 
go go kid

go go kid

Well-Known Member
deffo need some vamiculite with it for airation, as was mentioned, sand on its own will probably lead to problems with the roots.
connor c was right to mention sharp sand, its courser = more air to the roots.
the plant will grow poorly in my opinion with ordinary sand
 
Cpappa27

Cpappa27

Well-Known Member
go go kid said:
deffo need some vamiculite with it for airation, as was mentioned, sand on its own will probably lead to problems with the roots.
connor c was right to mention sharp sand, its courser = more air to the roots.
the plant will grow poorly in my opinion with ordinary sand
Click to expand...
I think you might be right possibly growing poorly in just plain sand. I am going to do one in just plain sand for the experiment. I may use a slightly coarser sand. I saw a video of this marigold grown in just river sand and the thing was a giant bush which really peaked my interest.

youtube.com

Marigold in Only River Sand #gardening

youtube.com youtube.com
 
Billy the Mountain

Billy the Mountain

Well-Known Member
Sand was actually one of the first hydroponic mediums used in large-scale operations.
The issue was inefficient use of water. As a medium, it works fine.

Opening from "Sand Culture" chapter in Resh's 'Hydroponic Food Production' book:

Sand culture was the most common form of hydroponics in areas of the world having an
abundance of sand. It was particularly well suited to desert regions of the Middle East and
North Africa. Now, however, nutrient film technique (NFT) and rockwool systems have
replaced sand culture because of their ability to recirculate the nutrient solution and to
automatically control nutrition through the use of computerization.

Since high-quality water is rare in most of these desert locations, some form of puri-
fication through distillation or reverse osmosis is imperative for success. Recirculating
hydroponic systems that efficiently utilize the costly purified water are essential from an
economic standpoint.
 
Cpappa27

Cpappa27

Well-Known Member
go go kid said:
deffo need some vamiculite with it for airation, as was mentioned, sand on its own will probably lead to problems with the roots.
connor c was right to mention sharp sand, its courser = more air to the roots.
the plant will grow poorly in my opinion with ordinary sand
Click to expand...
In my next year outdoor grow Im going to go balls to the wall and plant a bunch of stuff in different sand mixtures to see what does best. I may actually like this method. Its easy literally just rinse and repeat. No bugs or pest and probably better for preventing mold and mildew issues since many of those spores are in the soil.
 
Cpappa27

Cpappa27

Well-Known Member
Billy the Mountain said:
Sand was actually one of the first hydroponic mediums used in large-scale operations.
The issue was inefficient use of water. As a medium, it works fine.

Opening from "Sand Culture" chapter in Resh's 'Hydroponic Food Production' book:

Sand culture was the most common form of hydroponics in areas of the world having an
abundance of sand. It was particularly well suited to desert regions of the Middle East and
North Africa. Now, however, nutrient film technique (NFT) and rockwool systems have
replaced sand culture because of their ability to recirculate the nutrient solution and to
automatically control nutrition through the use of computerization.

Since high-quality water is rare in most of these desert locations, some form of puri-
fication through distillation or reverse osmosis is imperative for success. Recirculating
hydroponic systems that efficiently utilize the costly purified water are essential from an
economic standpoint.
Click to expand...
That is cool. I wonder if they ever thought of using sand to purify their water too, run it through other sand before you water the sand with the crops. Thank you for that excerpt
 
coreywebster

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
Cpappa27 said:
I definitely will be posting results. I am actually intrigued myself. I have never done coco so this should be a learning experience. I did do something I guess you could consider soiless, which was straight peat moss and dolomite lime and then I fed it the foxfarm soil feed and it did pretty good considering it was a 14 week sativa and I got her to finish without any issues. Im not going to buy hydro or coco nutes Im just going to feed it the Foxfarm soil nutes I have with calmag probably. I wonder what the ph of the sand would be?
Click to expand...
Apparently it's PH neutral
 
go go kid

go go kid

Well-Known Member
Cpappa27 said:
In my next year outdoor grow Im going to go balls to the wall and plant a bunch of stuff in different sand mixtures to see what does best. I may actually like this method. Its easy literally just rinse and repeat. No bugs or pest and probably better for preventing mold and mildew issues since many of those spores are in the soil.
Click to expand...
if it were that good for growing in, im sure we would all be doing it, give it a try by all means, but you want soil or hydro to get the best results. so dont wast a bunch of seeds on it
 
curious2garden

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
Cpappa27 said:
That is cool. I wonder if they ever thought of using sand to purify their water too, run it through other sand before you water the sand with the crops. Thank you for that excerpt
Click to expand...
Yes and here's a second endorsement for Howard Resh's work. Sand filters are used (although less so today) for filtering pools.

This was the book I used to guide my very first grow:
1694007853191.png
I started in NFT rails.
 
Cpappa27

Cpappa27

Well-Known Member
go go kid said:
if it were that good for growing in, im sure we would all be doing it, give it a try by all means, but you want soil or hydro to get the best results. so dont wast a bunch of seeds on it
Click to expand...
I agree that soil has everything the plant needs, I am a soil guy and probably always will be. Im doing this just out of sheer curiosity with the one plant. I have seen some very successful outdoor gardens and plants grown in a predominantly sand mixture while looking into this this morning. I like The Mittleider Method for my outdoor garden or at least some of the crops, like carrots grow giant in sand mix. So maybe potatoes would too? Im just very intrigued by the whole idea. I love this stuff.
 
go go kid

go go kid

Well-Known Member
Cpappa27 said:
Sweet, I wonder if they documented the outcome somewhere on that and the harvest?
Click to expand...
i cant seem to find any results like a flowered plant in sand, most sites seem to say the same thing, its not that easy, but can be done, but is that in theory or practice?
 
Cpappa27

Cpappa27

Well-Known Member
Im actua
go go kid said:
i cant seem to find any results like a flowered plant in sand, most sites seem to say the same thing, its not that easy, but can be done, but is that in theory or practice?
Click to expand...
Im actually going out right now to home depot and look at their different grades of sand. Do you think river sand would be safe to bring inside and not get all kinds of pest and problems?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top