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Did IKEA's fail at hydroponics? · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr.
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  Russell Sharp, the inventor of gold leaf fertilizer, or as it's known in the UK, liquid gold.
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  It's the one part fertilizer that gets you from seed to harvest with just one bottle, one input.
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  Today, I'm going to be talking about whether IKEA failed or succeeded with their hydroponic play.
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  So, it was in 2016 that
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  IKEA launched a range of hydroponic pieces of
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  equipment that could be used in the home and at
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  the time it was thought that this was going to be really good and it
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  was going to be sort of you know bring on hydroponics in
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  the home and people were going to be growing their own vegetables and i
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  think it was really well executed the kit was
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  a very high quality and i loved
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  it personally i and it was basically it
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  was a plastic tray with inserts
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  for rock wall plugs and then a really nicely designed
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  irrigation spout and then
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  you would put your fursigation solution in and then
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  you would grow your seeds and so they had various accessories
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  so they had a propagation unit they had
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  an led light they had
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  sort of containers that could go around it and they
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  sold the fertilizer as well now i'm not sure what was in the fertilizer and
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  when it comes to these sorts of units the fertilizer is normally the the weak
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  link certainly when it comes to like the miracle grow hydroponic unit that you
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  can buy or you could buy that was always the weak link when you looked at the reviews on say amazon.
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  And so it was it was launched in 2016 and the
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  thing about it was is that the the sort of
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  surrounding thing that made it look pretty in
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  your you know flat or your house that was
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  very expensive and the light the lights were very
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  expensive but the the actual
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  hydroponic units were sold i think as
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  a lost leader because they were ridiculously cheap and i
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  sort of cottoned onto this fairly early and i realized
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  that you could use these multiple ones of these
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  as sort of experimental units for developing hydroponic
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  experiments and formulation experiments and
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  I would go into Ikea and I would literally carry out 40 hydroponic units at
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  a time because they were like a couple of pounds each you know a few dollars
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  and yeah I must have I must have cost them a fortune in 2016 and then I was doing things like.
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  Running trials with sports turf we're doing a lot in sports turf at the time,
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  and I would make up a fertigation solution
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  with every essential nutrient minus one in
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  each of the trays so that we could look at the symptoms and
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  document the symptoms of deficiency in each of the trays I
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  also set it up so that we could have 40 of.
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  Them as an ebb and flood system and
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  I've still got these trays they're still really good they're still going a good
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  nine years later in my greenhouse they're a bit dirtier than
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  they were in 2016 the propagation units were not
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  as good they also sold the rock wall plugs in ikea as well
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  so for a while and and so i thought
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  it was really good and i think it might you know
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  they don't sell them anymore but to
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  say it's failed i think was would be a bit harsh i think
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  it got people into ikea that wouldn't have been going into ikea that
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  day and as you know when you go into ikea you never.
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  Just buy one thing you always end up with a trolley full of stuff and so
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  i think it probably got people into the stores it made
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  their kitchen displays look a
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  lot nicer and so you know you have pak choy and
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  basil and things like this so i don't think
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  it was a failure on that point unfortunately for
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  ikea gold leaf had only just been
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  invented around 2015 2016 so they
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  didn't have chance to get us into all their stores all around the world
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  which is a shame but they they could
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  have potentially used gold leaf and it would have been a good
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  one part to use in this in this hydroponic system it
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  was a good system if you had a good one part
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  obviously there's not there wasn't the ability to mix a
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  and b fertilizer and you wouldn't have wanted ph up and
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  ph down with complete amateurs going into ikea and
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  buying a hydroponic unit so a good one part would have
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  been excellent with this system the other good thing about the hydroponic units
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  from ikea was that they had little caps to go over the rock wall slabs while
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  the seeds were germinating so you didn't get excessive algal growth and the
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  the baskets that they sat in were really well made and they were made well better made than most.
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  Hydroponic baskets and you'll find that a
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  lot of the hydroponic units that are sold on social media now and are pushed
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  on social media are actually inferior far far inferior to the fairly cheap ikea
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  units that were on sale in 2016 so i think from an for for the the getting into hydroponics,
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  sector the the amateur first try at hydroponics has actually had a step backwards
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  since ikea left the market so i wish they would they would you know get these
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  back in because it would get more people into hydroponics and maybe start with
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  more complex nft or you know flood and drain systems after they've tried this, you know,
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  they get their excitement and their interest in hydroponics and take it from there.
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  So I'd say that the units were extremely well made and they're still going strong nine years later.
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  Often IKEA gets a bad rep when you go, I often call it the, when you go through
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  the furniture bit and you go down the levels and between the basement warehouse
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  level and the show homes, you get the houseplants.
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  I call that spider mite alley because you've got so many houseplants that have
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  been imported on Danish racking.
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  And if you're a hydroponic grower, I would definitely have a shower once going
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  through the valley of spider mites, that corridor that leads you through.
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  I think you you want to be careful a lot
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  of the plants come are pretty we can get some
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  pretty bad pests and diseases not the plastic fake
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  plastic plants though thankfully also of
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  note in 2016 in ikea they started selling
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  bicycles i think it was 2017 or maybe
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  a couple of years later and this was another one that was like a new
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  novel thing they tried their hand at it see if it would work but at the very
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  least it got people into the stores and i bought one of these bicycles because
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  i thought i'll be an early adopter it'd be like the first iphone and i bought
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  this ikea bicycle and all the accessories and it was good because it had a belt
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  drive system it was a one size fit all bicycle,
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  it had like auto gearing as well so you automatically go up and down the gears
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  so in theory it was good it was a bit rubbish though and after about six months
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  of me using this bicycle i'd take it on trips around the country when all the
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  thames in london on it it actually got with.
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  Recalled because of people have been like having serious
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  accidents with this bicycle and so i got all my money back
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  so that's another case of where ikea didn't make
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  much money on on me at all so the first one was when i bought all the lost leader
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  hydroponic units in bulk about 100 of them and the second time is when they
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  had to give my money back for the bicycle that i'd actually worn into the ground
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  so yeah i don't see many new and novel things coming from ikea but if you could
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  bring in the bring back the hydroponic units then
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  that would be a great thing they were called let's have
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  a look what were the units called something like vaxxer
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  or something like that it was i haven't got it up here but obviously
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  being ikea they had to have a crazy scandinavian name and
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  i think it was a vaxxer the vaxxer unit so you
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  could have a vaxxer unit on your billy bookcase and and have
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  an led light so if you've got one if you're still using it drop a comment below
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  in the or message us and see if you've had any particularly good successes with
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  the ikea hydroponic unit how do you how did you use yours and any tips and tricks
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  for utilizing it okay until tomorrow that's been hydroponics daily thank you very much.