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Tylenol (Paracetamol) causes what in plants?!?!?!? · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there, and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utreema Ltd.
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  And if you follow Utreema on social media, you will have seen me call out the
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  great big amorphous orange blob that is Donald Trump.
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  And because he was claiming to be the world's expert on grass,
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  Sports Turf. And I said, hang on a minute, I think I know more about Sports
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  Turf, the new Donald, because I've invented several unique Sports Turf products.
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  And I've come up with the world's only bioherbicide against a grass weed.
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  So that was a bit of fun. And then today, not so much fun, the Donald has stated
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  that paracetamol, or as it's called in America, Tylenol, causes autism.
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  With little to no scientific evidence for that. so
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  today we're going to talk about the effects of paracetamol on
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  plants and let's do some deep dive into the
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  research and see if there's any evidence or effects
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  of paracetamol when you apply it to plants
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  this is very common in horticulture you find something that's bioactive in one
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  species or one in humans and you apply it to plants to see if it works like
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  viagra found that viagra stops cut flowers from wilting and aspirin stops ethylene
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  being produced so it's very similar to salicylic acid.
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  And then paracetamol is related to aspirin, so we'll see if there's any effects
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  of paracetamol or Tylenol, it's called in America.
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  The correct scientific name for this compound is acetaminophen,
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  but I find that really difficult to say, so I'm just going to say paracetamol.
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  And we're going to review the research, and
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  the effects are usually either neutral there's no effect or
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  negative unfortunately so you can't
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  be the short answer is don't be applying paracetamol to
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  your plants but what happens well it's water soluble so just
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  like you have those fizzy dissolvable versions and
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  it can be taken into roots and sometimes into the shoots
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  so lettuce and spinach plants do this in hydroponics and
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  in controlled setups and there's a number of studies that show that
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  when it gets into the leaves well plants are
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  able to detoxify it so they can get rid of this this
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  drug this pharmaceutical and they do that by a
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  glutathione or glycosylization basically adding
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  either an amino acid or a sugar to it to detoxify it
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  so there's clear evidence in cucumbers and plant
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  cell models for that but if it
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  stays around it can cause physiological stress and
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  its exposure triggers oxidative stress responses increase in antioxidant enzymes
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  and it can but this is normally a good thing if you're looking for you know
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  crop taste or quality or things like this resin production but it can impair
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  photosynthesis and growth depending on the dosage and the timing so you definitely don't want that.
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  So in lettuce, 0.1 to 5 milligrams per liter, which is a very, very small amount.
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  And we think of 500 milligrams as being a tablet, isn't it?
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  So that's a hundredth or five hundredth of that.
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  For one to 15 days, uptake plus oxidative stress signaling.
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  Higher levels trend towards physiological impairment. So only very small amounts
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  required there for stress in plants.
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  And what else can we see from the data? in maize
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  it not only did it affect the stress signals and
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  photosynthetic rates it also altered
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  dna methylation and that will impact development as the plant goes along and
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  even the most basic of studies have shown that basically if you apply paracetamol
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  in a dose response the growth is inhibited but interestingly if you apply silicon
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  a silicon fertilizer that can mitigate against the effects.
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  Another good reason to apply a silicon fertilizer.
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  So unlike aspirin, paracetamol doesn't have any beneficial effects on plants.
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  And so we think of aspirin and paracetamol as being similar.
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  They're both phenolic and they both prevent or reduce pain, especially things like headaches.
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  However, paracetamol is not a salicylate,
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  so it's not going to have the effects it's not going to mimic salicylic
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  acid in the plants it's only going to have inhibitory effects
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  on on the plant growth so nothing
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  as severe as you know
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  rewriting someone's mental facets like
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  causing autism things like this that's
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  been claimed by donald but if you're a plant
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  photosynthesis is key and so any
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  small amount of paracetamol or tylenol will do
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  that luckily paracetamol is very easy
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  to degrade you with ozone and uv so
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  any sorts of filter that removes um
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  organic compounds will get rid of this you shouldn't
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  have any contamination anyway you should in tap water or in especially using
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  ro water and things like this rain water it's not going to be an issue there
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  are plenty of other things in your tap water to be concerned about other than
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  tylenol and paracetamol so remember don't link it to aspirin it's a completely
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  different compound and very different effects on plants.
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  So don't be applying paracetamol. Don't be taking paracetamol when you're growing
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  hydroponics and then weeing on your plants and stuff.
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  Okay. Yet another completely impractical episode of Hydroponics Daily.
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  I'm sure we'll eventually get back to the really good stuff.
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  In the meantime, while you're waiting, if you can leave me an Apple podcast
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  review, it would make my day.
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  If you listen on any other platforms, chill out and relax.
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  It doesn't matter because reviews on those sites are worthless.
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  It's only Apple podcasts that I care about.
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  So if you've got any requests for episodes, you've got any
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  corrections or points of view please contact me because
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  i'm more than happy to list your your thoughts
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  and thoughts from the community on this
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  on episodes as we go forward we're now
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  in september and we've still managed to do
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  an episode every single day that's the longest new year's
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  resolution i've ever stuck with certainly certainly compared
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  to any of like go to the gym or eat healthfully things
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  like that so i'm really proud we've only got a few more months really
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  haven't we until the end of the year and then we can decide what we're going to
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  do with it after that might even go bigger and better might do
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  video podcast every day no that would be too much i
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  hate doing video podcasts there's so much more effort than just
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  sitting down and pressing record when i'm bored at work so yeah it's been a
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  tough one this week because everyone else is off either off ill with broken
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  legs or off on holiday so i've been flying solo in the office and so but i still
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  managed to do this so really enjoying it still thank you very much for listening
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  and until tomorrow goodbye.