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'Lego' Hydroponic Products · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. I'm your host Dr.
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  Russell Sharp and today we're talking about Lego products.
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  No, not the toys that you get when you're a kid or even many adults.
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  One of my best friends who's obsessed with Lego but no, these are certain types
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  of hydroponic products that I term Lego products.
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  Before we get into that I just want to talk about some of
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  the other products we talked about previously and I said to be wary of
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  products that don't tell you what's in them and they
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  just say you know this is a tonic for root promotion or
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  and and you know a lot of products have rhizo or
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  root in their in their name and they
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  don't say what's in them but basically they're just seaweed
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  extracts and they the benefit you
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  get from a seaweed extract like increased rooting potential modification of
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  growth form and things like that they focus on that and they don't actually
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  say what it's in so they can charge a lot more for a basic seaweed extract often
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  they'll they'll say what's in the seaweed extract so they'll say contains gibberellins or auxins and.
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  Cytokinins alginic acid and things like this and you
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  think wow that's a that's a that's a pgr that's always
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  a natural pgr or it's it's a hormone product
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  when it's not it's just a seaweed extract that contains these just
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  as if you crushed up a leaf it will contain growth
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  regulators it will contain hormones because plants contain hormones so be
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  wary of those sorts of tonic type products and just make sure
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  you're not they might be fantastic products they
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  might be really good seaweed extracts and they might be really good humic
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  acid products or they might be really good tricontinol products
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  but if they're really overpriced then you
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  might be better off just buying a seaweed extract or buying a humic
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  acid product so they're the they're the tonic type products and
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  now we're going to talk more about the potion type products and these
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  are where somebody gets two or three
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  active products and mixes them together and
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  they do this for a reason number of reasons one the
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  first one is that they think they're being innovative they think they're being
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  scientists and innovating by mixing humic acids with seaweed with npk with tricontinol
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  with silica and they're not actually creating new innovation they're just mixing
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  products together they're lego they're adding one block to the next block which
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  unless there's a real reason to do that.
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  It's not really great. It's not moving the needle forward. Is that the phrase
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  I'm looking for? It's not moving the game forward.
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  And really, it's not true innovation, is it? Unless you, you know,
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  it's like, you know, adding three different paints together.
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  And unless you can make a Van Gogh or a, you know, Renoir with it,
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  you're just mixing paint together, you know, mixing yellow and blue to make green.
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  It's not rocket science. So it's pretend innovation.
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  That's And the other reason I don't like Lego products is that you rarely find
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  yourself in a situation where you need all of these things put together in one product.
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  In actual fact, you're probably better buying the seaweed extract,
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  the humic acid, the silicon, the tricontinol on your own.
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  And so that's why a lot of these products fail, because people think they're
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  being innovative, they think it's a new product, and then they launch it into
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  the hydroponic sector, and it just sits there and collects dust.
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  So we've had a lot of customers who've asked us to make these products in the
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  past, And sometimes I've made them and sometimes I've said, you know what,
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  it's not of interest to me because it's not going to sell. It's going to sit there on the shelf.
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  And then three years later, you're going to come back to me and say,
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  oh, it's sedimented out and it's not stable.
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  And you're like, yeah, because it sat on the shelf for three years and it's an organic product.
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  And you mix them all together and we haven't shelf life tested them.
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  So that's another reason I don't like Lego products. And then the other reason
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  is especially if they've got NPK in them.
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  So you take an example of tomorite which
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  is a basic npk fertilizer has a
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  bit of seaweed extract in there as well so it's an npk plus
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  an organic product so a mineral plus an organic product and
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  that's cheap as chips tomorite so if you're launching into the
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  hydroponic sector an npk plus a
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  seaweed plus this plus that what's what's
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  the market for it because everyone else is everyone's already
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  using an a and a b fertilizer or if
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  they're using gold leaf or liquid gold it's called
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  in the uk they've already got the base fertilizer so why would
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  they need extra npk you know they might
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  need a seaweed extract but why you why would
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  you be delivering an extra npk so that's another reason so as
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  i think they're often multiple products in
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  one go then if you're thinking of launching
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  one just be wary you've really got to have a
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  good rationale for putting all those things together it's not just hydroponics
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  you see a lot in sports turf there's a lot of products in sports turf that just
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  loads of products put together and even arable farms and they don't they don't
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  take over the world they're not the dominant products and they're often just
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  gathering dust and taking up space.
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  However if you think you know of one that's really good then let
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  me know and i'm more than happy to feature it on hydroponics daily
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  the classic one that we always get asked for
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  is seaweed extract plus amino
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  acids and when you ask the customer why they
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  want it they can never give you a good reason just say
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  oh my customer asked for it and we do sell a
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  lot of seaweed extracts and we sell a lot of amino acids at utreema
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  and we've got products like your hop growers they love it they put it
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  in together they tank mix it and they put it in with humic acids but
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  that's their job that's the end user's job to mix it in
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  the tank you don't need a product they don't
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  need one bottle and then pour it in they can just buy three
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  bottles and pour it in and pour it in the ratios they want so
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  yeah seaweed plus amino acids and then you might
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  see seaweed extract that says contains a lot of amino acids and
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  that's seaweed itself doesn't contain a lot
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  of amino acids doesn't contain a lot of protein so they've been
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  added and again seaweed contains sodal nitrogen phosphorus of potassium so if
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  you see a seaweed product that contains them again it's another lego type product
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  okay and that's one of the reasons we don't sell fertilizer to the general public
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  is because when you ask them what fertilizer they use they always say seaweed extract and you're like.
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  There's no npk in seaweed extract so why are
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  you using it as a fertilizer we prefer to go for the more
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  knowledgeable growers and hydroponic growers and sell through grow shops okay
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  so if it's if you're interested in stocking a good base nutrient then always
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  go for a gold leaf or liquid gold in the uk and then if you're looking for additives
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  speak to us as well okay that's been hydroponics daily for today i'll see you
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  again tomorrow thank you very much.