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Lightning in a Bottle: Plasma-Activated Water for Hydroponics · 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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  When it comes to the soil though, did you know that 5-8% of the nitrogen that
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  gets added to the soil is actually added due to the action of lightning?
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  Yep, lightning actually provides a way for nitrogen to get into the soil in
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  a form that is available to the plant. It's...
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  Really interesting that the immense energy in
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  a bolt of lightning provides the
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  energy to break the strong triple bond in n2
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  the dual nitrogen molecule and
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  allows it to form oxides and nitrogen oxides no
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  and no2 and things like this and so those precipitate
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  out in rainwater and can form go into
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  the ground as nitrates and provides fertilizer for
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  plants so about five to eight percent of all the nitrogen in
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  the soil so what's this got to do with hydroponics well
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  rather than using synthetic stable fertilizers
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  it's thought that a number of growers and greenhouses could
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  use plasma activated water as a
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  fertilizer and a sterilizer sanitizer for
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  their hydroponics and it's a big area of research this
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  year so what is plasma activated water
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  it's plasma is the fourth state of matter ionized gas
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  it's what lightning is made of and scientists
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  pass the plasma through regular water
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  and it fuses it with reactive oxygen and nitrogen
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  species or rons so now
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  these rons act as a mild nitrogen fertilizer and
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  as a natural sanitizer because they kill microbes you
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  certainly won't want them next to your plant for long because they might build
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  up and kill your plant but you need to make sure they're in the right levels
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  and that's where the research has been done making sure we can produce them.
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  Correctly and use them so plus there's two ways it can be done in hydroponics
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  the plasma jet can go into the water reservoir directly or plasma react.
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  Reactor with the water flowing through it which probably sounds a bit safer to me,
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  which looks like a small generator or reactor box attached to a water line so
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  this could potentially significantly reduce nitrogen use fertiliser use in lettuce
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  and leafy greens where it's been studied and.
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  Reduce the amount of energy required to produce nitrogen fertilizers
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  which is considerable and reduce the price of
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  nitrogen fertilizer for large-scale growers
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  and at the same time double bubble disinfect
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  your nutrient reservoir suppress pythium biofilms and
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  algae so isn't that fantastic the other
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  brucey bonus for this is that it leaves no
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  toxic residue so they decay away naturally the
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  reactive species unlike other certain other sterilizing
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  agents which will stay around like chlorine and then
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  the final big brucey bonus is that it
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  potentially lowers the ec drift in recirculatory systems
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  so producing it more stable so there's a
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  number of scientific trials and real cases where it's being used in
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  taiwan seems to be leading this area where bok
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  choy grown with plasma activated water nitrogen performed similar to standard
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  nutrient solutions and then in european greenhouse labs testing pour as it's
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  called for root zone sterilization in nft systems and some vertical farms are
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  now using pour in line before tank up.
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  Tank top up for sanitations. What are the limitations and challenges?
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  Well the effect depends on water storage time, ronds decay quickly,
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  dosing control is still experimental.
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  Too weak and it's useless, too strong and it burns the roots as I've said and
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  the equipment costs are probably too high for many growers at the moment.
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  Commercial root pour generators not widely
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  available yet but this certainly could be something we're going to see in
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  the next few years maybe even at the
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  smaller scale so grow rooms could grow use
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  poor kits and generators obviously it'd
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  be pretty high electricity use so another thing
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  that limits small scale growers and medium
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  scale growers is their electricity demand on this on the circuit
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  not so much the cost of the actual electricity but
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  the demand seen a lot of fires there's one
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  there's been a big hydroponic grow that's gone on fire in
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  leicester near to where i live this week on the
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  narborough road and burnt down a load of houses that
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  was a domestic setup wonder what they were doing in there and obviously another
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  limitation of plasma activated waters it's the it's best as a supplement not
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  a full nutrient replacement because it's only adding nitrogen you still need
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  potassium calcium magnesium all the other fertilizer nutrients the elements
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  that you would find in a good fertilizer
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  like liquid gold in the uk in
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  the uk or gold leaf as we call it in the
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  u.s which is the only fertilizer with every single plant nutrient and the only
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  fertilizer to get you from seed to harvest with one bottle so you could use
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  that in conjunction with plasma activated water if you wanted to add extra nitrogen
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  for example in leafy green crops that would be a good one so who's going to
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  be first to use plasma-activated water.
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  Probably large farms, those with high demand on nitrogen, but essentially those
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  that want to sterilise without use of chlorine and peroxide,
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  those that are persistently tackling biofilms or pythium,
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  And it'd be interesting to know if plasma-activated water could be used in organic crops.
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  It's, I don't know, I'll have to ask. I will ask the organic regulatory body
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  that certifies some of our organic products,
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  like chitosan biofungicide and things like this, and yucca extract and seaweed
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  extracts, and see if they would allow plasma-activated water in organic farms.
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  So organic hydroponics is allowed in the us it's not a thing in the uk or in
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  europe yet so it's a real thing it's not hype but it's still very early stages
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  so watch this space or watch other spaces,
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  it could be an eco-friendly nitrogen and sanitation tool so really interesting
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  to know what your thoughts are on whether you think plasma activated water are
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  going to be it's going to be a big thing in the future that's been hydroponics
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  daily for today if you found it useful,
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  Thank you very much for listening. Until tomorrow, goodbye.