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Triacontanol - a powerful hydroponic boost, but how does it work???? · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr. Russell Sharp.
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  I hope you're having a nice start to spring.
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  If you consider it to be spring yet, if you're a hydroponic grower,
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  maybe you don't care about the seasons because they all meld into one because
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  in your super controlled grow room, it's always 25 degrees C,
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  60% humidity and always sunny, except when the lights are off for the set day length.
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  So anyway, today's subject is, I want to talk about a growth stimulant,
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  a biostimulant that's very, very popular in hydroponics.
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  Even if you've never heard of it, you may still have used it.
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  And that is tricontinol, also known as metlicyl alcohol or mericyl alcohol.
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  But most commonly most people call it tricontinol and it is a fatty alcohol
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  and it's a compound that can be extracted from beeswax it can be extracted from
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  plant cuticles so the leaf the waxy layer on.
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  Alfalfa it can be synthesized synthetically
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  as well i think and it can come in a variety of
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  different forms it can come in different purity levels and but
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  what you're the product you'll most finding in hydroponics is
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  boost type products so if you
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  even if you hadn't known tricontinol was in these boosts
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  most a lot of small scale
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  hydroponic growers especially those that go to grow shops will have
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  been sold a boost or used a boost and this
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  is the active ingredient in those now as well
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  as the active ingredient there's a lot of surfactants and
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  sometimes there's solvents as well so at utreema
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  the parent company responsible for gold leaf
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  or as it's called in the uk liquid gold we manufacture
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  an organic tricontinol boost that
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  contains that's organically can be used on organic crops that doesn't contain
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  harsh synthetic solvents or surfactants that might harm the crop but lots of
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  other people produce boosts and it's an interesting one because we manufacture
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  it we manufacture what i consider to be a really good one but if you were to ask me how does it work,
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  I would say, I have no idea. And even the people I sell it to,
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  and I say, you know, Andy, what does it do? And they're like,
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  oh, it improves photosynthesis.
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  And you're like, well, what the hell does that mean? You know,
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  improves photosynthesis.
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  It's such a top level, generic, I need to know more about that.
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  I need to know what the actual mode of action is. What chemical does it stimulate?
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  What process is it modifying? and no
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  one's really got that i've come across and my
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  research has come across a really good answer to that even
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  things like oh it improves photosystem 2 in
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  photosynthesis yeah how it's an
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  extract of plants and you're putting it back onto plants it's.
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  An extract of the cell walls that you the waxy cuticle
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  that you're putting back onto the waxy cuticle or you're putting into the root system
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  for me it doesn't make any sense but the
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  responses people get and people report
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  are fantastic and so people love
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  tricontinol and i might be
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  wrong but about 10 years ago there was a report in
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  the chinese media that went global of of pumpkins
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  exploding and necessarily watermelons exploding because
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  they were growing too fast too quickly and people were getting hurt with these
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  exploding watermelons that was
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  either true or it was a fantastic marketing exercise on
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  behalf of the people making tricontidol because tricontidol
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  is very popular in asian horticulture but
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  if you if i was to go out and talk to my arable farming
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  customers they will have never heard of it my hop
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  growers and horticultural crops
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  lettuce spinach they will have never heard of it but hydroponics is
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  very popular and people have heard of it and in asian horticulture it's very
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  popular so definitely something that you might want to play around with if especially
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  when you're coming into flowering it's often used as a flowering boost can't
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  do any real harm as long as you've got a really good product as i say it's a
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  sugar alcohol did you say it's a sugar alcohol.
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  No sorry it's a fatty alcohol and so it's not going to be something that's going
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  to be you know have a terrible phyto toxicity or human toxicity so tricontinol
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  is it's definitely debatable.
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  In some countries it's considered a a
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  growth regulator or a hormone or a pesticide in others
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  it's not considered so you'd have to certain countries
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  you can buy them very easily in other countries you can't and it
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  depends on the claims that you're making for the product often often when
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  it comes to pesticides it comes to the claims and obviously you
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  can get in the us if you're selling a product as
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  that's got pesticides in as classified as pesticides you can
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  get into real trouble and you can get some serious fines
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  plus you could even go to jail so it's not
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  in gold leaf in the us but if
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  you certainly gold leaf is compatible with
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  tricontinol you can tank mix them fairly well the
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  important point to mention is never buy
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  pure tricontinol powder unless you're
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  a chemist because it's extremely difficult to
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  formulate into a stable soluble product and you'll get all sorts of issues with
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  like white powder on the surface of your nutrient tank and you'll be wasting
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  tricontinol it's an expensive product and so you don't want to be wasting it
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  you want to make sure that it's in a soluble form that can get into the plants,
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  so that's been hydroponics daily for today hopefully it's given you some insights
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  into these boost type products that you see when you go into grow shops and
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  if you've had any really good results with boost type products you know they
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  wouldn't be able to command the price they.
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  They do get if they weren't people weren't thinking these are having really
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  good results so obviously you know the people really do believe they work and
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  and who am i to say they don't so,
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  you know certainly so i'm prepared to sell people tricontinol you know i'm happy
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  for them to say that it works and the reports back are really good so i just
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  can't think of how it works so that's been hydroponics daily for today tricontinol
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  and tricontinol boost products.