Dubai: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has achieved a major success. During an experiment in 40 days of lockdown, the UAE has proved to the world that fruits and vegetables can be cultivated in sand. Scientists have grown fruit-vegetables like watermelon and gourd in the sand.
The UAE meets 90 percent of its fresh fruits and vegetables through imports, but now the UAE can use this experiment on a large scale. The success has been achieved using the liquid nanoclay method. This is a way to regenerate the soil, this will reduce water usage by up to 45 percent.
The UAE has announced that it will set up a factory using this method and start its commercial use. In liquid nanoclay techniques, very small particles of clay are used as fluids. The principle of kinetic exchange capacitance of soil chemistry is used in this method. Due to the chemical structure, the clay particle has negative charge but the sand particle has positive charge.
Ole Sivertsen, the chief executive chairman of the Norwegian company Desert Control, which developed this method, says that due to the opposite charge, they form a bond when the soil solution is found in the sand. When this bond gets water, its nutrients stick to it. The soil propertise are developed in a way which stops water and plants start spreading its root. Sivertsen said that a liquid nanoclay plant will be set up in a 40-square-foot shipping container.
Many such containers will be planted in sand-based countries so that they can be cultivated in the desert of that country from the local soil. If this method is being used on one square meter of land, then it costs Rs 150.