sawdust as medium for sprouting?

four (9B near 9A)

10 years ago

Does 100% sawdust work well?

If so, then does it matter whether it comes from natural wood
or from commercial lumber?

Featured Answer

Dross Effigy

5 years ago

Hey guys, sorry to revive an old thread. I am a field manager at a vegetable farm. I have used sawdust for propagating root segments, stratifying and sprouting seeds, and preserving scions and 1-2 node stem cuttings. Id like to point out that sawdust is not going to absorb nutrients from a live seed. A seed with a living embryo has compounds that need to break down once a seed dies before it will begin to decay and give its nitrogen away. It is fine to use sawdust for germinating seeds as long as it is derived from a wood that is not high in tannins. Actually, sawdust that is reasonably coarse provides some very beneficial conditions for germination; the most important being plentiful oxygen. Other benefits are drainage/water retention (easy to regulate moisture) and extra heat. My advice for most seeds started in sawdust is to carefully transplant into another medium after the epicotyl has begun to form, but before it has fully straightened out. By then, the seed should have some healthy lateral roots, but its still easy to pluck out of the sawdust. So TLDR; sawdust is a very effective seeding medium, as long as its only used to help stimulate germination.

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Comments (8)

digdirt2
10 years ago
Unusual question. Does someone recommend this? Nothing grows in sawdust for good reason, plain or even mixed with other materials.

The wood dust binds up all the nitrogen to aid it in decomposition including leaching the nutrients out of the seed coat that the young seedlings need to survive. And if it did work yes, it would have to be sawdust from plain, natural, chemically untreated lumber. Most commercial lumber is treated in some fashion.

Dave
dowlinggram
10 years ago
As usual Dave is right on the money. Sawdust leaches all the nutrients out of any plant. The only good use for sawdust in the garden is to add it to the compost heap but only if you know it's not treated in some way like chippings from a downed tree. Otherwise it is best to send it to the landfill or use it on paths away from any plantings
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four (9B near 9A)
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you for the replies,
on the strength of which I dismiss my tentative thought of trying it.

( Before I posted the question, I had searched GW for information. I cite the
following only as a for-whatever-it's-worth perspective, given the different condition.
"...sawdust (several years old).... seeds germinated, and within a couple of weeks were 6 TIMES (Yes I measured them!) larger than the seedlings in the flats"
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/seed/msg0214050315097.html )
digdirt2
10 years ago
Comments taken out of context can often be very misleading. As was pointed out in that discussion of potting mixes, that individual was having a number of problems with their methods.

The important distinction in that thread is that it was well rotted sawdust - several years old - mixed with compost.

While we don't have anyway of knowing the ratio of compost to rotted sawdust that one person used we can guess that it was predominately compost as it was used to fill an in-ground bed.

The primary point was how well rotted it was. Any sawdust, over years of time time, will break down to the point where it no longer binds up nitrogen and becomes a neutral soil amendment. Does that mean it should be used to start seeds? No,

You didn't stipulate the age of the sawdust in your original post.

Hope this clarifies.

Dave
Wade Hanes
3 years ago
Answers are incorrect Mushroom Mycilium grows in sawdust and after it is spent can be used to grow seeds in when you are done growing mushroom and it is a very goos compost atthat point
Kathy Lemmon
last year
I have successfully grown seedlings on fresh sawdust from fir trees
four (9B near 9A)
Original Author
last year
Thanks, Kathy. Please clarify. Do you mean that seedlings developed from seeds that germinated in the sawdust, and you left the seedlings in it?