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Unveiling the REAL Truth About Silicon Fertilizers · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi there, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. Today is the episode that a lot
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  of people have been waiting for, and that is the expose on silicon fertilizers.
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  What's in them, and what do they really contain, what do they do?
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  So, we have analyzed three products from the market, and we've looked at what
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  their actual silicon content is.
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  I'll then go on to talk about
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  when I would use each of those products and then I'll then go and bust the big
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  myth that where it comes to silicon fertilizer that a lot of people have been
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  arguing about on social media and I will tell you that it's absolute complete
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  nonsense and people need to stop talking about it so first of all the three
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  products we analyzed were.
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  Utreemazone c-silica it's an organic silicon product so we
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  know what goes in there so it's a good base reference point so
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  that's our own in-house one we don't sell into the hydroponics industry it's
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  mainly for lawn care so that's a good one that we haven't got
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  a we don't sell it into hydro then we've
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  got shogun which is a uk brand and they've got a silicon product
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  and we've got grow genius and
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  that is a different product it's based
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  on the silicon that is dissolved
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  in synthetic solvents like ethanol and they
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  all claim certain silicon contents so what we did
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  is we put them into the lab and we analyzed their silica content
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  so silica content like the sand in the
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  beach you can easily analyze that by just drying the samples
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  off so over a few days we dried them right
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  down to see if they contain the silica and therefore
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  the silicon content that they claim to so drum roll
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  please the utreema product contained.
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  Just over the amount we declare on the
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  label which is what you want the shogun
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  product contained significantly more than it
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  claimed on the label which was not
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  hard because it was only 1.4 so if i
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  work for silicate if i work for shogun i go back and look
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  at my specs from the raw materials i'm buying in and just check
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  you've got your sums right on that one because you've actually got a more concentrated
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  product than you state not as powerful as
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  utreema's c-silica one but it's good up there it's good very good value for
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  money okay and then the grow genius this too contained the same amount of silicon
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  that it declared just slightly over again what you would want so on the bottle
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  it says and it's a very small bottle.
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  It says it contains 19% silicon, and that's what we found.
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  So there you go. Nothing major of an issue there. So when would I use the different products?
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  I would use, Shogun's a really good product for if you're a beginner hydroponic
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  product grower, because you're.
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  It's it's a lower concentration it means it's easier to
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  to dilute and you're not going to
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  mess the problem with silicon products is they break down over
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  time in the in the fertigation solution
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  that's what you want to happen but it can raise your ec levels over a 24 hour
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  48 hour period and so shogun's a really good product for adding to your fertigation
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  tank if you're new to hydroponics and you were you don't use a super really
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  strong product the utrema product i would use if I'm an organic grower,
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  because it's the only one that's certified for organic use.
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  And the GrowGenius product, I would use if I was really struggling with pH,
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  because the Eutrema product and the Shogun product, which I believe is based
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  on potassium silicate, just like the Eutrema product, C-silica,
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  whereas the GrowGenius product doesn't raise the pH when you're at it.
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  So it's a great product if you're struggling with pH.
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  Now, if you're using Goldleaf in the US, or liquid gold, as it's called in the
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  UK, you can add either any of these products and it wouldn't affect,
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  it wouldn't take the pH out of the sweet spot. So don't worry about that.
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  I would also use the Grow Genius product if I was on a golf course and I was struggling with pH.
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  There in golf courses and sports turf, it's one of the few situations where
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  you don't want to be raising the pH because you get disease problems there.
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  They want to keep it acidic.
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  Whereas in most farming situations, you actually don't mind raising the pH.
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  That's why you lime soils when you're farming.
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  So each one has their own use and the analysis was good, so nothing major there.
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  However, now we come to the big reveal, the big problem with hydroponics,
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  and that is that everyone has become obsessed with the term monosilicic acid.
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  Monosilicic acid is the form of silicon that plants absorb silicon by.
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  It's a small molecule with one silicon atom.
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  Whereas potassium silicate is a polymer and so certain companies have been making
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  a big deal that they contain monosilicic acid and one of them is GrowGenius
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  and they've been claiming on the front of this bottle 40% monosilicic acid,
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  You know, it's not great, but what really is an issue there is that GrowGenius
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  social media have been calling out other brands like PowerSI and things like
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  this, and it doesn't sit well with me, that one,
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  because no product contains monosilicic acid.
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  They all contain silicon, and GrowGenius contains polymerized silicon.
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  Now, it doesn't contain potassium silicate, but if you look on the safety data
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  sheet, which is freely available on the website, you'll see it does contain
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  a range of silicon polymers.
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  So, tetraethylsilicate, polysiloxane, ethylpolysilicate, these are all the active
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  ingredients in GrowGenius.
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  So these are not monosilicic acid and
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  just like the potassium silicates they break
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  down to form monosilicic acid in water
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  so grow genus will form monosilicic acid
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  when it's added to the fertigation tank but
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  so will shogun's product and so will the
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  utreema c silica and all the other silicon products
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  if it was to contain monosilicic acid in
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  its true form it would be weak as piss
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  because monosilicic acid is not soluble
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  in high enough concentrations that's why we
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  use polymerized versions that's a very good reason
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  for using polymerized versions so if everyone could stop using the term monosilicic
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  acid that would be fantastic if everybody could stop slagging off everyone else's
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  silicon product in the hydroponic industry that would be great there's a lot
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  of bad blood at the moment in the UK hydroponic industry. We need a bit of peace and love.
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  And so everyone just chill out. Stop using the term monosilicic acid. Let's have a.
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  GroGenius claimed 40% monosilicic acid, but if all of their silicon was as monosilicic
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  acid, it would actually be 67% monosilicic acid.
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  Because if you take 19% silicon and then convert that by looking at the molecular
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  weight of monosilicic acid,
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  then that would actually equate to 67% monosilicic acid
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  so where they've come it's actually 42 or
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  45 silica is what it is just
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  as the utrema product ours is 12.6 and the
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  shogun's is actually nine percent silica well that's
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  what we found so yeah there you
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  go that's the results of our test in summary
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  all the products contain what they say they do the shogun
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  product actually contains more than it says it's going to too and
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  then the key takeaway home message here sorry and also
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  the second takeaway message is if you're struggling
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  with ph grow genius is a good product if you're in
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  a golf course if you're organic use utreema and if you're a hydroponic grower
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  who's looking for an easy to use product than the shogun's one i know a lot
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  about all silicons because i've been making them for a long time and i was actually
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  asked by orion ft who are the original manufacturers.
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  Of the grow genius product to make it for them about five years ago six years
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  ago about seven years ago now and i turned them down because i didn't want to
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  be working with ethanol you need specialist equipment to be working with ethanol
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  spark proof equipment and then and so so i know it's a good product. I know it's hard to make.
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  So I'm not saying it's a bad product because I know it's a good product.
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  And I know Engage Aggro, who are the people who buy off Orion FT, and,
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  they they've got some good products for arable crops
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  and and sports turf and then so
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  yeah i know this i know the whole supply chain so that's an
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  interesting one and we've we've had a few issues in uh with uterine
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  with people in the hydroponic industry you know bad-mouthing
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  us in other in other areas this week and they
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  don't actually realize that we supply a lot of their manufacturers raw
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  materials so yeah it's been
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  interesting in hydroponics there's a lot of drama in hydroponics this week in
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  in in the uk and so yeah and that's not even the biggest drama of the week which
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  i can't even talk about but the people behind grow genius have had a lot of
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  good marketing from another aspect of that this week should we say invoices
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  on ebay that's all i'm going to say.
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  That's they've got a lot to thank us for this week so if everyone
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  could just stop saying monosyllidic acid and just talk about silicon that everything
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  would be fine and dandy everyone's product contains the right amount of silicon
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  that it says it does okay and they all break down to form monosilicic acid so
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  let's not have anyone slagging anyone else's product off online okay,
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  if anyone wants to come back at me and say i've got this wrong then i'm more
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  than happy this is only my opinion if you think there's some other silicon technology
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  i have ignored then i'm more than happy to do a follow-up okay so silicon fertilizers
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  as i repeat they all contain what they say they do.
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  The ethanol synthetic solvent ones are good for when you don't want to check the pH.
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  The more dilute versions are good if you want to good control over your furtigation
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  solution and uterine have got an organic one.
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  There's no such thing as a monosilicic acid concentrate. They all break down
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  to form monosilicic acid and just check your calculations everyone.
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  Shogun check your silica content and your silica on the on your specs and yeah
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  if grow genius want to tell me where the 40% monosilic acid comes from i'd be
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  interested to know that okay until tomorrow that's been hydroponics daily goodbye.