Latest / Hydroponics Daily / Dates for your diary for 2026 in Hydroponics: Must-Attend Events

Transcript

Dates for your diary for 2026 in Hydroponics: Must-Attend Events · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
• 0:05
  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited.
• 0:09
  Today's episode is just to mark your diary with some dates for 2026 that could
• 0:14
  be of interest to hydroponic growers.
• 0:17
  Now there's the obvious dates like the longest day, spring equinox, things like that.
• 0:22
  Spring equinox, 20th of March, longest day, 21st of June.
• 0:25
  They'll affect your photo period your daylight and
• 0:28
  also the amount of hours you can work if you're outdoors in your greenhouse
• 0:31
  or polytunnel if you're in a grow room those dates do
• 0:34
  not affect you really apart from the fact that as
• 0:37
  you go into summer it's going to be harder to grow indoors in a grow room if
• 0:41
  i was starting an indoor grow for the first time then i
• 0:44
  would take advantage of january january you've
• 0:46
  got all the christmas hassle out of the way and
• 0:50
  you're able to concentrate you're not going on holiday probably in january
• 0:53
  february march most people don't unless you're a skier and
• 0:56
  so there's a good few months there where the temperature is low and
• 0:59
  you can actually get a good grow on and you can afford yourself
• 1:02
  a few mistakes in the summer you can't afford yourself any mistakes
• 1:05
  because the temperatures are high and your plants will frazzle and die if you
• 1:08
  don't look after them well so they're the meteorological dates of the diary
• 1:13
  some trade shows i recommend if you are growing ornamental plants then i definitely
• 1:19
  recommend you head over to Essen in Germany and go to IPM Essen.
• 1:24
  That is the 27th to the 30th of January.
• 1:26
  Now Germany is very, very cold in the winter. And so be prepared.
• 1:32
  It's easy to get to Essen. It's
• 1:35
  very close to, I think, I want to say Dusseldorf or Frankfurt Airport.
• 1:40
  I want to go Dusseldorf.
• 1:42
  Basically in the west of, you know, the northwest of Germany,
• 1:46
  but everything's very built up and it's really easy to get to so don't worry
• 1:48
  about that public transport's fantastic.
• 1:51
  So definitely recommend ipms and a week or
• 1:54
  so later there is also fruit logistica in berlin now
• 1:57
  that is even further east and that's you probably want to fly into there and
• 2:03
  it's cold but it's a good fruit show fruit attraction in madrid sort of taking
• 2:08
  over but fruit logistic is still probably the biggest fruit and i think they
• 2:12
  also do veg there as well other ones in February.
• 2:17
  Indoor AgCon is a, that's in Las Vegas. That's the 11th to the 12th of February.
• 2:23
  So you could do all three of these, I think. Let me just check where Fruit Logistica is.
• 2:27
  Yeah, Fruit Logistica is the 4th to the 6th of February. So you could hop around
• 2:32
  doing all the trade shows.
• 2:34
  And then you've got a bit of a wait then until Greentech Amsterdam.
• 2:38
  That's the 9th to the 11th of June. That's one I definitely recommend.
• 2:41
  If you've never been to Greentech and you're in hydroponics whether indoors or
• 2:45
  greenhouse or polytunnels then green tech amsterdam is a brilliant show and
• 2:49
  it's in amsterdam in june which is a lovely time to go to amsterdam not peak
• 2:53
  tourist period and but still lovely and warm and it's a good show it's nice
• 2:58
  airy show it's not in a you know horrible it's a much nicer environment than
• 3:01
  the trade show locations in essen and.
• 3:05
  Berlin and madrid i'm not sure about las vegas
• 3:08
  indoor ag con i've never been to indoor ag con i would imagine it's
• 3:11
  vertical farmers central if you want to send me
• 3:14
  some tickets i'm more than happy to go to vegas send me some hotel room
• 3:17
  reservations and uh hire cars
• 3:20
  and vip tickets then that'd be fantastic then we've got a new trade show in
• 3:26
  the uk uk hydro expo and that's in somerset that will be difficult to get to
• 3:31
  public transport somerset is where stonehenge is and so you could double up and go to Stonehenge.
• 3:37
  8th to 9th of August, that's an invite only, tickets not available.
• 3:40
  It's for UK hydroponic shops and people in the hydroponic industry.
• 3:45
  It'd be interesting to know how that goes because there was one called the Autopot
• 3:49
  Summer Social, which was very similar.
• 3:51
  That was in Oxfordshire, lovely location in Oxfordshire in the middle of nowhere.
• 3:54
  But that stopped because it was a lot of work for the organisers and it wasn't
• 3:58
  the organisers making all the money from the show.
• 3:59
  It was the, well, as always in the UK hydroponic industry
• 4:02
  it was the distributors making a lot of money and the shops
• 4:05
  were making a bit of money but not the people who actually organized it
• 4:08
  so they stopped that it's a lot of hard work for them it was fantastic show really
• 4:11
  good displays in the greenhouses but uk hydro export expo in somerset let's
• 4:17
  see how that one goes hopefully the uk hydroponic industry recovers because
• 4:20
  it's pretty bad this year so that's one to look out for four oaks trade show
• 4:26
  if you're into garden Center stuff in September.
• 4:28
  Wouldn't recommend it personally.
• 4:31
  Same with Glee if you're in the UK.
• 4:33
  And then I would, another show that I want to get to, but I've never been able
• 4:39
  to get to, is Green Tech in Turkey.
• 4:44
  Because the dates are really hard to get
• 4:46
  to grow tech isn't it grow tech let me
• 4:49
  check when the dates are for that grow tech it's in
• 4:52
  antalia where i'm going on holiday actually very very
• 4:55
  soon but it's in late november the
• 4:58
  actual dates have not been confirmed but it's actually because it's a hotel
• 5:01
  holiday destination sort of location as well as
• 5:03
  a growing destination it's actually quite difficult to get
• 5:06
  flights from the uk certainly can't get them on my british airways
• 5:09
  air miles which is my governor of where I go but Grotec
• 5:13
  Amsterdam is a good so Grotec Antalya in
• 5:16
  Turkey is a good one I think because a
• 5:19
  lot of people who can't get visas to Holland
• 5:23
  can still go to Grotec without any
• 5:26
  issue or maybe they can get issues they can get visas but it's a pain in the
• 5:29
  ass to get to you know for a lot of people in a lot of countries whereas they
• 5:32
  can get visas to go to turkey fairly easily and so you get a lot of chinese
• 5:37
  suppliers as well and the beauty is that you don't get like when you go to a trade show in china.
• 5:44
  You do get a lot of dross. People come in who just are chancers.
• 5:48
  The trade show is full of chancers.
• 5:50
  Whereas if you're in Turkey, you might be full of Chinese people,
• 5:53
  but the Chinese people have been vetted by the fact they've been able to pay to go there.
• 5:57
  They're not going to be chancers. So you get the legitimate Chinese manufacturers,
• 6:02
  not the middle people trying to be middlemen, trying to see an angle wherever they can.
• 6:07
  So Grotec Amsterdam is good from that perspective. if you get a lot of middle eastern customers
• 6:11
  of central asian customers which is
• 6:14
  a big grown area that are feeding russia because
• 6:17
  of the sanctions on europeans providers so grow tech antalia would be a good
• 6:21
  one to stick in your diary and then if you are a ornamental grower in america
• 6:27
  or just into horticulture in general then and you don't want to go to ipmson
• 6:32
  then cultivate is a good show I've been to Cultivate once or twice.
• 6:38
  That's run by American Hort and that is July the 11th to the 14th.
• 6:42
  So stepping back in the year a bit there.
• 6:43
  It's a good show. Lots of Amish growers go to that one, Cultivate.
• 6:47
  It's really interesting to talk to them.
• 6:49
  They get bussed in and they go around with their cameras and take lots of photos,
• 6:53
  things like that. It's good to talk to them.
• 6:55
  And then there is obviously the legal cannabis shows, the CannaCons and things like that.
• 7:01
  Can be hit or miss. I've been to a couple of those in the past and some were
• 7:05
  good, some were a bit of a washout.
• 7:08
  It depends on the local organisers, I think.
• 7:11
  And then obviously the big legal cannabis one is MJ BizCon in Las Vegas.
• 7:16
  And it's very much a pay-to-play trade show, so don't go there with a small budget.
• 7:22
  And so you're really for established people in the legal cannabis sector and those with big budgets.
• 7:28
  So that is towards the end of the year. I believe that is
• 7:31
  december so it's currently
• 7:35
  it's currently down for the first to the fourth of
• 7:38
  december so get your christmas shopping
• 7:41
  in in las vegas and jbizcom so if
• 7:44
  you know of any other good trade shows that are coming up or conferences then
• 7:49
  let me know and i can do an update and add that to the list of things that growers
• 7:55
  hydroponic growers should be adding to their diary for 2026 okay There will
• 8:00
  be obviously lots of other small...
• 8:02
  Crop specific shows there's always
• 8:05
  things like you know fruit focus fruit in the
• 8:08
  uk down in kent potatoes in practice in
• 8:11
  in scotland normally such a crazy small trade
• 8:14
  shows single single crop trade shows last
• 8:18
  year i went to the international conference on
• 8:21
  controlled environment agriculture down in plymouth that was a really
• 8:23
  good trade show at nutter trade show conference so the international conference
• 8:28
  on controlled environment agriculture so that was really good one but it doesn't
• 8:31
  look to be on next year or if it is it's not advertised yet that was february
• 8:36
  last year i'll speak to some of the organizers and i'll let you know if it is on and any of the details,
• 8:43
  close to the date that's been hydroponics daily for today if
• 8:46
  you found this useful some of those trade shows have whet your appetite then
• 8:50
  please do leave an apple podcast review of the show so you can share the the
• 8:54
  knowledge of hydroponics with the great the wider horticultural community and
• 8:59
  click follow to make sure you don't miss an episode and always check out utreema.co.uk
• 9:04
  for some novel fertilizers,
• 9:06
  biostimulants and biopesticides.
• 9:08
  Thank you very much for listening and until tomorrow, goodbye.