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Hybrid Growing Techniques · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hi there, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr. Russell Sharp.
• 0:03
  Today I'm going to be talking about hybrid growing.
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  I don't know if this is a term that's used routinely or if it's just a term
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  I've invented, but this is where you grow a crop indoors in a grow room and
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  you start them off there and then you move them out either into a greenhouse or into the field.
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  And it's not used very often,
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  but I think it should be used far more often
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  for many different types of crops so i did this
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  year with i did i did hybrid
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  growing this year with great success and i did tomatoes and chilies so i started
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  off my tomatoes far far earlier than is recommended for a greenhouse crop in
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  the uk because i was growing them in a in a grow room.
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  I was growing tigerella tomatoes so the
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  stripy ones and these are now
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  bearing fruit that is
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  just ripening so this would not be possible
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  in the UK for months and months yet most
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  people's tomatoes are still tiny little seedlings and
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  so I've got a much longer grow period
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  and this is not a crop that's just going to flower fruit
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  then die this is a plant that will keep on
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  producing new flowers until i either cut off
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  the the developing stems the new
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  grow points or the frost comes in the
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  autumn so i have now increased my my
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  growing season by at least
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  three months by doing this and the same not so much for the chilies because
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  the chilies will probably have determinate growth but I'm growing super hot
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  chillies that probably wouldn't have ripened in time outdoors in the UK now
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  I'm sure they will and I can certainly get them growing get them into bigger
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  pots than I would be would have been able to otherwise,
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  So this is a fantastic technique that I think more growers should use.
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  Certainly some of the standard hydroponic growers, if you're going to grow outdoors,
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  you can start them off early.
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  And certainly a lot of auto-flowering varieties and strains of certain crops,
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  you can start them off in a grow room and then you don't have to worry about.
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  The cost of running the grow room for all those weeks of flowering.
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  You can just stick them outside in an unheated greenhouse. if
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  you've got space and got the ability to do so the location that suits and
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  i think hybrid ground is a much underutilized technique
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  certainly in the uk there's also some research being done currently on this
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  sort of this sort of area down where i i used to work down at east moorling
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  research station in kent in the uk and they're looking at growing strawberry
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  plants and propagating strawberry plants indoors.
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  Now, indoor strawberries are notoriously difficult.
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  It's the big hope of hydroponics is that you could grow.
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  An economic strawberry crop there's loads of research on growing
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  economic profitable strawberries in vertical farms
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  but it's not been done really it's only been done by a couple
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  of companies and even those are the really high-end sort of asian strawberries
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  that are gifted to people not the strawberries that you would buy in a supermarket
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  normally so currently not profitable for strawberries to be grown indoors in
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  grow rooms however the work in kent is to look at whether you can propagate.
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  And produce young strawberry plants that could then
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  go on and start their life earlier indoors
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  so um katcha and i'm
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  not going to even pronounce her two surnames she's from greece she's
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  working at east moorling and she's working with mark else who's my former phd
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  supervisor they're doing the research and it's
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  a big project and i think it would be i
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  think that's a really good concept i think more crops should
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  be started like this i think hops for example you could
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  get really good virus-free plants that are
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  started off a month or two early and then
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  you don't need to worry about the autumnal rains and things
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  like this you could get your vines growing early but loads of
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  crops could be started off early indoors and grown on so
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  if you think your crop could be done then have a look at hybrid growing
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  if you want any advice then let me know so i just the
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  key thing here is to make sure that your growing media is
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  probably the same so you couldn't do an nft and then go
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  into soil it probably wouldn't work wouldn't work very well because you'd
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  have to rip the roots out so you probably have to look at potted plants
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  for this or certainly something that could be transplanted but
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  so it's certainly something to look at that's been hydroponics daily
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  for today hybrid growing and if you are moving your plants out to a grow room
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  or from a grow room to a greenhouse a polytunnel or outside be careful of transplant
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  shock if you're looking for a treatment that will help with transplant shock
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  then check out eutremors seaweed extracts humic acids.
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  These sorts of biostimulants that will help with just reducing the stress levels
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  on the plants and getting them established once you transplant them.
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  Thank you very much for listening. Goodbye.