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Hydroponics Daily: No Soviet Secret Labs — Just Space Pizza · 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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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp. I'm the owner of Utrema Limited.
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  We make a range of specialist inputs for hydroponics and other sectors,
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  including gold leaf, as it's called in the US, or liquid gold,
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  as it's known here in the UK.
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  And I said on yesterday's episode of Hydroponics Daily that I would be talking
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  about hydroponics in the former USSR.
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  I didn't do any research on that topic, I just thought I'll research it today.
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  So I did some research and found that there was virtually no research on hydroponics
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  in the USSR, so there's no Soviet hydroponics secret labs or bases anywhere.
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  There was a bit of few seeds germinated on the predecessor of the International
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  Space Station, but that's about it. It was not a big area of research.
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  So what I'm going to do today is instead do some comments from listeners and
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  some updates on topics that we previously talked about as well.
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  So the first one is that I did a whole episode on growing cacti hydroponically.
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  Forgot to mention that dragon fruit are a type of cactus and they can be grown hydroponically.
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  Most of the crops are grown in the ground worldwide but
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  lots of people out there have tried growing dragon fruits
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  and their related species hydroponically dragon fruit are if you don't know
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  them they look like like a dragon egg really they're bright pink on the outside
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  with green scales and then they're white with black white on the inside with black seeds they are
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  Not that tasty, I don't think. I think they look better than they taste,
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  but they are an unusual fruit from an unusual type of plant.
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  Another unusual fruit from an unusual type of plant is soursop or sugar apple,
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  anything in the family Annona.
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  I have a research of these because these are really interesting.
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  These are actually related to magnolias, and they're like tropical magnolias.
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  So not aware of anyone growing them hydroponically,
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  but they've got some interesting chemicals some members of the family i'm reading
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  here on wikipedia contain neurotoxins that can be linked to parkinson's like
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  disease so that's interesting so obviously in the uk we have parkinson's disease
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  but not many people drink eat poor
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  sugar apples or sour sop things like that so that's an interesting plant i was
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  researching that because I
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  was reading a book last night that had an error in it, a botanical error.
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  The book is by the best-selling author Richard Osman, and it's his latest book, We Solve Murders.
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  And in it, it describes one of the protagonists as coming back from the airport
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  covered in magnolia petals.
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  And magnolias don't have petals, so there's a mistake there for Richard,
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  the normally very, very good on these facts he's
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  richard osmond but actually magnolias
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  are very very primitive type of
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  plants just like the sugar apples and they
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  evolved before the bees before bees evolved and
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  so they don't have differentiated sepals and petals
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  they are fused sepals and petals called tepals so
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  she would have been coming back from the airport in dublin covered
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  in magnolia tepals so richard osmond
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  i found a mistake in your book your best-selling times
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  best-selling book so that was interesting to to
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  look at what else have i got to talk about
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  today interesting news article today in england
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  gene edited crops will be allowed from 2026 so
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  this is not genetically modified crops this is
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  basically crisper technology crisp r technology
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  and you'll notice
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  i said the word England there not Great Britain or the United Kingdom because
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  we've got devolved governments in those areas and they have not adopted this
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  these regulations so both the conservatives and the Labour governments so conservatives
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  to begin with and Labour have pushed this through because they really want to help farmers.
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  So there's a number of different varieties that are coming in.
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  Disease-resistant potatoes, longer-lasting strawberries, potentially sweeter
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  lettuce, wheat with reduced levels of asparagine. Don't know why that's important.
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  Oh, because they form lower levels of acrylamide during baking.
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  Very important in potatoes that as well when you're frying them.
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  Acrylamide is a carcinogen that is formed in baked and fried goods.
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  So you want to avoid that. so potentially healthier food and
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  blight resistant crops so let's see
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  let's see if that actually happens or if it just increases
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  the income for biotech companies which
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  was what happened with genetically modified crops and these like roundup ready
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  crops so watch this space england then
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  about a week ago i did an episode of the
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  podcast there was also a youtube video about growing crops
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  on Mars and in the
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  news this week is that a Wrexham University
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  that prestigious university in North Wales you might
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  have heard of Wrexham it's a it's an industrial town
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  in the north in North Wales where they've got a football team owned by Ryan
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  Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and Wrexham University have got a project working
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  with local schools where the peoples are growing space pizza or as is in the
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  Welsh language, pizza goffard.
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  And they're growing the... Each school will grow a different ingredient.
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  To make a pizza so i'm assuming wheat for
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  the base and tomatoes and
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  basil what else i don't think i don't
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  know how they're going to do cheese but yeah this is
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  an interesting project they could they've got aeroponic hydroponic systems
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  and they're going out to the local schools so that's
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  a great way of getting kids in wales interested in growing crops and growing
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  crops hydroponically so big up to Wrexham University and a company called Grozen
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  I think is it as well so that's interesting so yeah space pizza in Wales who
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  would have thought it maybe the Mars.
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  Mission missions to Mars will be speaking Welsh rather
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  than English or any other language Chinese things
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  like this so that'll be interesting maybe Wales will take
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  over the space routes now once the kids around wexham wexham
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  have start start growing hydroponically and
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  lastly my update on my micro greens i'm still getting
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  into micro greens in a big way and i
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  told in the past about how i've working on a soilless reservoir
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  type system that can be scaled up into our lab and been
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  googling around how to get cost-effective seeds because
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  you go through a lot of seeds when you grow micro greens and heard
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  reports about how you can just take the seeds from
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  health food shops packets of things
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  like mung beans and peas and germinate from there i've tried this in the past
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  with not a great deal of success so i've invested 20 pounds worth of seeds i've
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  got what did i get mung beans where's where's my packet i'll get them oh no
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  they're over on the other side of the lab and I can't be bothered,
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  so off the top of my head chia seeds, mung beads.
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  Quinoa or as I like to call it, quinoa spelt wheat, because I couldn't get any wheat popcorn kernels,
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  maybe one or two others and i'm going
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  to grow i'm going to try and see if i can germinate them it's going
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  to be one big experiment and hopefully a
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  very colorful experiment and see if i can grow microgreens from
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  them really looking forward to growing the popcorn especially because
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  i want to make golden popcorn which never sees the light of day until
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  it's harvested and then use that my friend ben owns
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  a bakery and we're going to put that into some sourdough or something like.
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  That so nice sugary popcorn microgreens
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  interestingly i'm not
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  going to mention that it's top secret that i will leave you
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  with a teaser anyway that's been hydroponics daily for
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  today thank you very much for listening to my ramble on many
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  different subjects just a quick update episode and if
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  you've got any questions or comments i'm more than happy to feature them on
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  another roundup summary episode in
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  the coming weeks thank you very much for listening do really appreciate
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  it if you could leave a review on apple podcasts
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  particularly then that would help me tremendously we
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  shot up the apple podcast charts by about 170 places
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  we really were in the doldrums for a
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  number of days and then we shot up to like 37 overnight
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  so that was fantastic that's probably due to a couple of good
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  reviews on apple podcasts so a couple more of those
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  we'll get even higher in the podcast charts and then that will
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  snowball and the momentum should build
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  with it by itself once we're in the top 10 i'm
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  sure we can get it into the top 10 we could be the first hydroponics podcast
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  to be consistently in the top 10 of the
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  gardening podcasts and put all these boring podcasts about to grow tomato plants
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  you get the tomato seeds and put them in the ground and then cover them with
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  a layer of compost you know all absolute bog-standard boring stuff let's take
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  advanced hydroponics to the moon
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  or to mars even thank you very much for listening i'll stop now goodbye.