This article originally appeared in the April 2017 print edition of Cannabis Business Times. To subscribe, click here.
Cannabis growers across the globe grow their plants in salt water. In fact, every plant in the world grows in salt water, and has been doing so since the day they came ashore.
It is not “ocean” water in which these cultivators grow their cannabis, but it is indeed very salty water that plants adore. In the field, rain falls and percolates down through the soil, dissolving minerals (mostly salts) that it encounters. Salts occur naturally, and the salt level in soil determines how much nutrient value the soil contains. Some salts are good, and some not so good, but the good ones are the key to plant growth and profit.
When dissolved in water, salts like calcium nitrate “disappear" into solution as the calcium atom and nitrate molecule are being pulled away from each other—transforming the dry, uncharged salt into one positively charged calcium atom (Ca++) and two negatively charged nitrate anions (NO3).
The uptake of these charged atoms and molecules has produced some interesting adaptations in plants, such the ability to pump potassium into the plant. Once nutrients have been absorbed, biology happens, resulting in plant biomass, which after harvest and drying, consists entirely of the nutrients it absorbed in its life.
To get more nutrients absorbed, we need to be pouring more salt water onto our plants.
To read the full article in Cannabis Business Times' April edition, click here.
Photo: © Roxana Gonzalez | iStockphoto
