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Rockwool vs Bare-Root NFT: When to Use Growing Media · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for.
• 0:05
  Everything soilless cultivation.
• 0:07
  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited,
• 0:11
  and we manufacture unique fertilizers, novel biostimulants, and organic biopesticides.
• 0:17
  And in the past, I've given away free samples with orders to listeners of the podcast.
• 0:23
  I'm very generous, aren't I? But I've got an even more amazing offer for you
• 0:28
  at the end of this podcast.
• 0:29
  So keep listening the subject of
• 0:32
  today's podcast though is one that i've struggled
• 0:35
  with i've done a bit of research about because i'm not an expert
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  in everything and i don't claim to be although i do act like i am trying to
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  be sometimes on this podcast it's one about i always struggle to realize why
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  some hydroponic systems you see have a big rock wall slab or big cocoa slab
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  and then And in other hydroponic systems,
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  certainly NFT, it's just a small cup,
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  plastic basket or plug, and then most of the roots are suspended in just the
• 1:08
  solution or the air, and there's no sort of medium for the roots to go around.
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  And so that's something I've really been struggling with. When do you use rock
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  wall slabs, and when do you just use the tiny cubes and let the roots just fend for themselves?
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  So, NFT can be designed for bare root growth.
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  The core idea of NFT is that the roots grow freely in flowing nutrient solution,
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  not inside a lot of media.
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  And once the roots reach the nutrient film, there's no longer need for support from a substrate.
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  So, this is your classic sort of like circular pipe type system with a plastic
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  plug inserted, maybe a small amount of rockwool, peat, cocoa,
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  or vermiculite in there. And.
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  That's you tend to see that more with like lettuce crops however
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  some growers especially in commercial setups start with
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  a big rock wall slab and these are for
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  things like tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and i
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  spend my time when i go around hydroponic systems more
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  in the tomato cucumber sector than i do in.
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  The lettuce so that's the one i'm more familiar with so i'm not i always
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  struggle why are they not using grow media in lettuce things like
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  that so there the plants need more water buffering
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  early on they need more support it supplies
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  so it's a stability anchor and moisture reservoir and
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  keeps the roots apart so some of these tomato plants
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  although we think of them as an annual plant if you're growing
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  them in your garden they can actually survive for 12 14
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  months and so the roots need to be kept apart otherwise they're going
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  to rot and just grow around
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  themselves and there'll be rotting areas and anoxic
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  anaerobic areas within them so that's why
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  you would need to have a good keep the roots apart in a
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  in a in a growing media something
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  like rockwool and the other thing is that some plants just
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  tend to prefer growing around a
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  growing media for some reason the roots respond a lot better
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  but for crops like lettuce basil herbs leafy greens
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  you only need a small pot a starter
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  cube of rockwool or something similar for them
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  to grow so the other advantage of
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  rockwool slabs is they hold a lot of water so if
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  your pump fails or you aren't able
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  to water to have the nft running continuously then they can act as a reservoir
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  so there's there's there's another advantage of having grow media the disadvantage
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  of rockwool is that it's expensive it's hard to get hold of so in the uk you
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  can't buy rockwool slabs anymore from grow shops you used to be able to.
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  Maybe 10 years ago what nfts were a lot more popular
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  15 years ago now i i struggle
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  to buy them for my growing system i really resent
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  going on amazon i hate jeff and everything
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  he stands for and his business model and things like that we don't sell
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  on amazon never want to be jeff's so i
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  don't want to sell on amazon even though i do b2c and
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  b2b and so i avoid rock
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  wall slabs and so i'm for my hop grow room
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  now i'm thinking of moving towards a grow media
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  completely completely hydroponic no grow media not
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  even rock wall system and if i if i do have to resort to grow media might have
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  to go to lecca volcanic rock so yeah don't there isn't a catchy name for the
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  difference between the two like growing media less bare root i suppose bare
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  root nft should we call it that?
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  So yeah, that's what I'm experimenting with, and that's what I've been researching recently.
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  Now to my interesting announcements, and that is that,
• 4:42
  I'm giving away samples of some of our core products with unique chemistry.
• 4:48
  So there's about eight products in the Eutrema lineup. If you're in the UK,
• 4:53
  so you have to be in the UK to get these, and you have to be a professional grower.
• 4:57
  And you can access free samples. You don't have to buy anything.
• 5:01
  Just select them on the website, pay the postage, which is £4.95,
• 5:05
  and you get a free sample.
• 5:07
  So you might want to bundle that with a bottle of something else at the same time.
• 5:12
  So that you know you save on that 4.95 postage
• 5:15
  but any any professional grower whether you're you
• 5:19
  know a hydroponic grower a farmer a green
• 5:21
  keeper anyone you can get a
• 5:24
  free sample so if you follow the
• 5:27
  link on the podcast description here you
• 5:30
  can access that directly and if you
• 5:33
  do put a domestic address in we might contact you
• 5:36
  just to make sure you are a grower and not just a chance some gardener we don't
• 5:40
  you don't want those gardeners getting free samples because it will be inundated
• 5:45
  with thousands and thousands of chances otherwise all right so that's been how
• 5:50
  to produce daily for today your ability to get any free sample of any of the
• 5:54
  core products we're not doing,
• 5:56
  liquid gold because you can't really test or gold
• 6:00
  leaf it's called in the u.s you can't really test a fertilizer without doing
• 6:03
  a full run so it's more the biostimulants the
• 6:06
  biopesticides and the specific products like
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  silicon that we're giving free samples of yucca extract
• 6:13
  humic acid seaweed extract chitosan rather
• 6:17
  than the base fertilizers because 60 ml samples not
• 6:20
  going to get you very far it's only going to be a few grow a few.
• 6:22
  Watering cans or nutrient tanks so
• 6:26
  check that out follow the link in the show description if you
• 6:29
  have found this podcast interesting please leave an apple podcast review it
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  helps share the podcast we've slipped down the charts now so i really need your
• 6:36
  help make sure you click follow leave a review and check out utreema.co.uk but
• 6:41
  just just go onto the link here in the show description thank you very much
• 6:45
  for listening until next time goodbye and I'll leave you with another stupid
• 6:49
  song that AI has created about the podcast.