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Air Flow for Hydroponic Success · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr. Russell Sharp.
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  Today we're talking about air movement in your grow room or your glass house
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  and it's an area where beginners often overlook it in favour of,
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  you know, concentrating on getting the lighting or the nutrients right, but it's a massive area.
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  It's really important and stick around to the end because
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  I've got two really good points of
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  why led growers people using led lights especially.
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  Need to ensure good airflow so as
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  i said airflow is a particular issue that's
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  neglected by beginners and that's because you think
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  oh i've got some air movement in the grow room and you think
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  it's only there to just like move the air around and
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  and you know things like that but it's actually crucial
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  for ensuring that stale air that's low
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  in co2 because plants have photosynthesized it high
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  in oxygen and very high in water it's
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  very humid moves away from the leaves
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  as quickly as possible and there's two types
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  of leaves in plants there's simple leaves and compound leaves
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  simple leaves are the ones that are just look like
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  a normal leaf and then compound leaves are are separated
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  out into leaflets or serrated so like a hemp
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  leaf is is a compound leaf ash compound
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  leaf whereas a simple leaf would be like an oak leaf an oak
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  and simple leaves any crop that's got simple leaves
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  like basil struggles to get air movement away from
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  it through normal flux of air around the
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  plant and so air movement is crucial for getting that that that
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  stale air away so around the leaf the humidity is
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  very high because the stomata are open evaporation is
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  occurring and it can actually if
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  you've if you've got 100 humidity in your
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  grow room the if you've got light hitting
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  the leaf you can actually get more than 100 humidity around
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  that that leaf and that is a really good
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  way of stimulating fungal diseases and we definitely don't want.
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  To do that in a grow room you could
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  also unsettle pests in your grow room.
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  By having good airflow so aphids would
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  struggle to land on your plants if you've got good airflow mites will
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  struggle to join plants together with their webs but
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  especially fungus gnats they will they're really bad
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  at flying and they will not be able to settle on your growing media if you've
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  got good airflow over your media and then top tip your outlet fan i would always
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  position it near the ground because then you can as well as hoovering up lots
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  of air stale air and getting it out of your grow room you'll also fungus gnats will get caught in the,
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  outlet and they can't get in the inlet because hopefully you've got a filter on
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  that so there's a top tip always put your outlet
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  fan near the ground to get get rid of the fungus gnats and then you you'll hoover
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  up a lot of fungus gnats doing that and they
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  say there are lots of different fans to choose from but the inlet and outlet
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  fans are not good for air movement you might think they're pumping in lots of
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  air and they are some of them some of them are very powerful but they're not
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  good for air movement for those you need like the office fan type fans and.
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  You can get really large ones you can get ones that attach to
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  the grow tent themselves or ones that sit on stands in vertical
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  farming you they normally use smaller fans attached to
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  the trays and some of these can be the same fans that
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  are used in computers and so the low voltage fans it
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  depends on your system and how you're doing it one massive.
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  Important issue for safety though is making sure that
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  your plugs are not and your.
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  Sockets and your extension leads are not just left on the floor
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  of your grow room because if you've got an irrigation tank and that
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  fails or a pipe fails or a joint fails that's
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  a massive electrocution hazard right there
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  so that's why you when you see professional boards
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  used for hydroponics they're never on the
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  floor always make sure that they're on the wall or
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  high up where they're not going to get water and that can be
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  difficult because the leads can be very short
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  that they're supplied with another safety issue
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  is that they often come in a
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  form that you have to assemble in the grow room and if
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  you don't attach that cover to the front of the fan.
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  Then you could hurt yourself by because some
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  of these pans are very powerful and if you got your
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  hand in them as we said in the last podcast accidents happens
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  you get hydroponic fails but make sure that you
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  don't have a safety fail because that really would be an epic fail other
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  types of fans you get ones in commercial poly
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  tunnels that have evaporative cooling and so they evaporate water
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  and that that's almost like a cheap version of a
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  air conditioning unit air conditioning units themselves will
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  have fans in that will move air around and dehumidifiers
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  will have fans in them move the air around but you can't rely on them
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  alone and you must not position them close to a
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  plant unless you've got good airflow because a dehumidifier is going to be pumping
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  out very very dry air and air air conditioning you're reducing putting air in
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  that's very very cold and the first plant that gets to will not be getting the.
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  Same air as the plant at the other end of the grow room unless you've got good airflow.
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  So that's another good reason for good airflow around your room because it harmonizes
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  the air, makes everything uniform.
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  And in a lot of crops, uniformity is the most important thing.
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  You know, the people who sell ornamental plants for B&Q and places like that
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  and big box stores like Home Depot, their number one parameter is uniformity.
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  And in a lot of professional horticulture, you know, food and things like that,
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  cut flowers, uniformity is key.
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  So i said led lights there's two
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  crucial aspects where it comes to led lights and air movement is
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  crucial the first is that led lights don't
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  produce anywhere near the same amount of heat as a sodium luminaire
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  does and that means that the leaf is not being
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  leaf transpiration evaporation is not being driven by
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  the light as much this can lead to issues that
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  are associated with lack of transpiration like poor growth calcium
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  deficiencies and things like this so rather than whacking up
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  your calcium levels you could just increase your
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  airflow levels around the led lights and the other
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  thing that's critical is that led lights
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  are have need to have good cooling to
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  ensure their lifespan is prolonged and
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  that their output remains high they degrade extremely fast in high when when
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  they're when they're run at 100 of their capacity at high temperatures so places
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  like australia led lights have a much lower lifespan than they do in the north
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  of Scotland for this reason.
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  So if you can cool your LED lights by producing the airflow,
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  you can increase the length of time they're producing that high level of light.
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  Now the price of LED lights is crashing. They'll probably crash even further
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  in the UK because of tariffs in the US, but in the US, LED lights will probably
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  increase in price dramatically because of the Chinese tariffs.
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  So you want to increase their lifespan. so make sure they
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  don't overheat especially in the summer anything over 30
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  degrees c will produce a will be
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  adding to the temperature around the LED lights which will be
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  far higher so think about that when you're designing your grow room make sure
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  you've got enough airflow and make sure the airflow is around your plants around
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  the grow media to get rid of those fungus gnats and around the lights to increase
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  their lifespan that's been hydroponics related for today thank you very much
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  for listening and see you again tomorrow.