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Calcium in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

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  Welcome back to Hygiponic Daily with me, Russell Sharp, the inventor of Goldleaf Fertiliser.
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  And very pertinent to this is calcium and calcium deficiency when it comes to one-part feeds.
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  So calcium is a secondary macronutrient, so needed in large volumes.
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  It's essential for cell wall structure.
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  If you made jam, you've added something called pectin to the jam, so thicken it up.
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  Calcium pectate is what's in cell walls that makes them rigid.
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  And without them, you get soft tissue that's prone to disease,
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  is weak, it's going to fall over, it's going to die off.
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  It's also needed for cell division. Calcium is needed for cell signalling and cell division.
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  And so very important for new growth.
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  So bear those two things in mind, because when it comes to deficiency,
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  one of the first things you're going to see is not very nice.
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  And that's necrotic tissues. think frostbite on
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  humans black necrotic tissue worse
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  still is it's in the young developing cells the rapidly
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  dividing cells where it occurs first so this
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  is your lettuce plant expertly grown by me drawn by
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  me here you'll get dead heart
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  same with celery that the young
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  tissues in the middle are going to die off you're going to cut into your lettuce and you're
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  just going to see blackness and death if you're
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  growing tomatoes you'll get what's called blossom end rot you'll see
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  the same on chilies anything in that family aubergines blossom
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  end rot makes it completely unsaleable you're not going to want to eat it you
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  might be able to make a chutney out of it by cutting off the dead material but
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  it's not nice and actually it's not normally due to a lack of calcium in most
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  growing situations it's normally due to a lack inconsistent water availability and.
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  And both of those three things are important. It's not just lack of water because
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  you could have a perfectly well-watered plant and the environment's too humid.
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  And so the water's not moving up. It's not taking calcium with it in the xylem sap.
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  It doesn't matter about the phloem sap that moves photosynthesates about because
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  calcium doesn't move in the phloem.
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  Other nutrients do, calcium doesn't. So it needs that constant movement up through the roots.
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  If the humidity is too high, the lights aren't on, it's too cold you won't get
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  enough movement of that sap equally if there's a drought so there's water deficits
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  severe water deficits you're not going to get enough calcium coming through.
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  Or if you're switching between you're only washing them once a week
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  or you allow the soil to come or the grow media to completely dry
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  out even for just a day or two
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  it can result in blossom end rot the next
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  week or a few weeks later because that that
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  that fruit was developing at the time when there was inconsistent water
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  availability if the fact there's not enough air movement in
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  the grown room you can get calcium deficiency if you've
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  switched from high pressure sodiums to leds and and
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  you're lighting and you've not taken into account the fact
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  that there's not enough it's not going to be as high a
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  leaf temperature driving calcium up as the
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  water evaporates that can be an issue so not
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  a calcium availability issue a calcium moving in the water issue and then acidic
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  soils acidic growing mediums calcium can drop out and you can get calcium deficiencies
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  there but far less common in hydroponics because we we monitor our ph you know almost daily.
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  And then conventional one part fertilizers talked
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  about this before gold leaf or as
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  it's known in the uk liquid gold is revolutionary because it contains calcium
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  and phosphorus and all the other essential nutrients and a lot of people will
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  say oh we've got fertilizer that's very similar and you'll you go oh have you
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  and we've been down this road many years and people have gone okay let's have a look at your label,
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  yeah where's the calcium oh well it's got everything but calcium it's like yeah
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  a ferrari's got everything but four wheels but you know you've got to have everything for it to be a.
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  Usable one part fertilizer otherwise it's not a one part it's a one part it's a two part,
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  and you'll have people who say oh ours just contains calcium
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  you give it a shake and you can hear the calcium phosphate
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  crystals in there so that is a common symptom
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  of division c if you to as i
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  say there's there's a company the biggest fertilizer company for
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  home and gardens they sell a one part and all
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  the reviews on amazon are terrible because there's sludge
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  with calcium phosphate in the bottom so calcium is
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  a big issue you could the main way to add calcium if
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  you if you want to add calcium on its own isn't with a cal mag that prevents
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  you overdosing on the calcium and preventing issues with the calcium to magnesium
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  ratio you could add things like calcium nitrates calcium you've got a bit of
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  lime calcium carbonate what else could you add.
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  Calcium sulfate a bit of gypsum not very soluble carbonate and sulfate though
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  so best to get yourself a formulated calmag or stick to a base nutrient that
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  contains calcium and control your water make sure it's consistent i mean one
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  of the the key skills in hydroponics hydroponics is a science and an art.
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  And one of the arts, the skills, is getting your watering right,
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  getting your calcium levels right, making sure you don't waterlog your plants,
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  but also making sure you don't get symptoms of calcium deficiency from just being too extreme.
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  Okay, that's been Hydroponics Daily. If you think I've missed anything important
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  about calcium, let me know. What else can we say about calcium?
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  It's really good at driving out sodium from the root system if you've got salt,
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  stress, and things like that.
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  Yeah, it's a wonderful nutrient. One of my favourites. Thank you very much.