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Integrated Pest Management in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr. Russell Sharp,
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  the inventor of gold leaf, or as it's called in the UK, liquid gold.
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  Today I want to talk about integrated pest management, which sounds boring.
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  I know we don't want to dwell on the problems we want to look at.
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  We want to focus on the nice things about hydroponics, but it is an interesting
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  topic because it's a new way,
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  well not necessarily a new way, but a different way of looking
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  at crop protection and keeping
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  your plants healthy as opposed to this
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  sort of polar framing of
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  it as you use chemicals and pesticides and
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  you're in that camp or you're in the organic camp of i don't use pesticides
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  even though organic farming still uses pesticides it just uses more natural
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  or organically certified ones so rather than going that do use pesticides don't
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  use pesticides approach.
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  Integrated pest management is about using lots of different techniques to minimize
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  the use of chemical control.
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  So it can even still apply in organic farming because you still don't want to
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  use organic pesticides.
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  Certainly some organic pesticides are horrible, like copper is a residual heavy
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  metal poison toxin, but can be used in organic farming.
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  So you don't want to use that we sell in utrema
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  a product called lime sulfur and that
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  can be used in organic farming but you have to wear a gas
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  mask it smells of rotten eggs if you inhale it
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  you die so again in organic
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  farming you always want to be reducing the amount of pesticides you use and
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  you know this is why we use grow tents
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  in hydroponics and grow rooms is because we want to reduce the
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  pests coming in so we don't have to control them after they've
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  come in so there's a there's a few ways
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  of looking at integrated pest management and if you
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  google it and go to images you'll see
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  a whole host of different ways of representing it
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  on some of them are on like a a wheel and some of them are on a pyramid and
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  then the wheel ones try to emphasize that there are lots of different methods
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  all going around and then the pyramids try to emphasize that at the very very
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  top the minimal block should be chemical control.
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  So let's look at some of the different concepts that are part of the integrated
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  pest management system and see how they apply to hydroponics.
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  So let's start with location.
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  Now, you might not have much choice when it comes to location,
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  but especially when it comes to pest control, because other factors come into
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  play, such as rent and water supply and heating.
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  But if you did have an option you wouldn't cite a
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  say a hop growing hydroponic
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  system next to other plants next to
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  a nursery that was also growing plants in that plant family
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  because you would get pest and
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  disease coming in and you wouldn't want you
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  know loads of weeds around your your location
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  that were you know passed on to pest and disease so that's one thing to look
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  at you might want to look for a if you a rural or an urban location away from
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  other growers if there are lots of growers who are doing it badly near you and
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  have pests and disease you might want to move away from them so location as
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  a key aspect crop rotation.
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  Crop rotation, you can't really do in hydroponics unless you've got four or five different crops,
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  but it's obviously an absolute critical part of pest and disease control in
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  field vegetables and field arable crops because you don't want the buildup of
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  the disease year after year after year.
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  Although where I am here, I look out into the fields, I can see fields that
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  grow wheat year after year after year.
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  And I know the farmer who does that and he's perfectly happy with it.
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  He doesn't even do any crop rotation which is crazy you could look at seed selection
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  so making sure that your diseases your your seeds have have got have been bred
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  for pest and disease resistance or tolerance for some species this is fairly
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  common for other types of plants pest and disease,
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  tolerance and resistance is not something that's desired by growers when they
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  they select seeds certainly hyped species where you're looking for color and
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  taste and things like this.
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  The next one crop husbandry and hygiene just
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  keeping your your grow room or your grow system
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  clean and tidy is going to help with with pest
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  disease algae biofilms things like this all
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  the sorts of things that places where pest and
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  diseases can hide soil and plant nutrition keeping
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  the plant healthy is is important making
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  sure they've got optimal amounts of the right nutrients but not overdosing
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  on nitrogen because nitrogen is the one nutrient that if you give too much to
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  plants it will actually make them weak and luscious growth that will be highly
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  susceptible to pest and disease because they'll be able to penetrate the cell walls far more easily,
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  and also there's a theory that you know nitrates high nitrate crops give off
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  chemicals that are attract pest and disease calcium silicon would be key to
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  making sure that you you you have good pest and disease resistance silicon and
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  calcium both improve cell wall strength.
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  There is a paradigm, a theory that's put out there by a lot of people in regenerative
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  farming that there's no such thing as pest diseases and weeds.
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  It's just plants that don't have the right nutrient balance.
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  And if you get the nutrient balance right, you won't have pests and disease.
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  That's absolute nonsense and is not true.
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  You will always have pest diseases and weeds. So the big example of people who
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  say that is John Kempf in North America.
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  And I've talked about him when we talked about carcinogenic fertilizers
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  i think he's an absolute plonker and don't
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  believe that you will always have pest and disease but if you get the nutrients right
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  you stand more of a chance of resisting them
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  water management is going to be key plants that
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  are flooded are going to get diseases they're going to
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  get water molds rots plants that
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  are over under watered will
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  get other diseases i'm trying to think what would
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  droughted plants get aphids aphids a big problem in droughted plants and then
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  if you don't if you flip between too much water and too little water you'll
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  get calcium deficiency and you'll get blossom end rot and blackening of leaves
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  things like that you could look at intercropping putting other plants in between your systems.
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  Making sure you harvest and storage store your produce
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  well so making sure that you don't get rots there and preparing
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  your your grow room is also
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  important and then other aspects of ipm
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  making sure you monitor and record pests and
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  diseases so you know where they are and getting
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  control of them early because if you are going to put
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  a chemical on or a biological on you stand far
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  more chance of success if you
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  if you get that if you get control of it early so don't put your head in the
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  sand it's good to get into your grow room your glass house enjoy being around
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  your plants and looking for pest
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  and disease and then the other thing to consider is what is the threshold,
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  above which you would you would put action for some
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  pest and disease one or two is not a problem but for others one or two is a
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  disaster and you need to get control of them before they get out of hand so
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  if you had a grow room and you had one deer in your grow room that'd be one
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  deer too much but if you had i don't know one spittle bug or.
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  I'm trying to think of one slug. You wouldn't put slug pellets all over your
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  plants and risk the contamination of slug pellets. You'd probably just stamp on the slug.
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  And then before you reach for the chemicals, is there a biological control mechanism?
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  So is there a bacteria, a fungus, a nematode, a mite, a wasp that you can put
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  on to kill or control that problem first?
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  You know for every insect there
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  is a parasitic wasp that will attack it and for
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  every wasp every parasitic wasp has another wasp
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  that will parasitize it and so they're
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  great wasps are very very useful in a
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  grow room but predatory mites are also great as well that's
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  something we've looked at here at eutreema in the past culturing those
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  nematodes are also great we've looked at that as well my mechanical
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  and physical control if you've got aphids a great way
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  of controlling an aphids before you reach for the insecticide is
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  just to squish them on all your plants just go around and
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  squish them as i said slugs you can literally just stamp
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  on them a disease that's less that's less
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  problem easy aphids you can literally
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  just spray off your plants as well with a high pressure nozzle as long
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  as you don't damage them and then lastly you can
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  go to chemical control and use a pesticide we've
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  just been looking at that in the uk because a lot
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  of people have been importing products from
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  america for pest control thinking that they're
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  suitable here in the uk and a lot of them contain copper sulfate.
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  And that's banned in the uk because it's
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  a toxic heavy metal and you can't use that on on crops
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  anymore so i'd always advise you against using copper-based
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  products i'd rather my i would
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  rather my produce that i ate and consumed
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  was sprayed with a synthetic insecticide
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  and fungicide than a copper one and
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  that's how bad it is because it's you know
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  it's it's a nasty chemical so yeah that's
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  by the by if you've used ipm if you
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  go into a large grow room ipm integrated
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  pest management will be will be the norm
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  it'd be what you're expected to know about integrated weed
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  management is another similar concept integrated
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  nutrient management and water management these are all terms and
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  a lot of companies get audited for them now
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  if you grow for large supermarkets you'd be expected
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  to do this and this for like fresh produce
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  there's things like global gap and and certification bodies for integrated pest
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  management so that's been hydroponics daily for today integrated pest management
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  oh just to just to say it's called integrated pest management but it replies
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  to pests and diseases should have said that at the start shouldn't i but yeah never mind.