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The Hydrogen Peroxide Clash Rocking European 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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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utreema Limited,
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  and we manufacture fertilisers, biostimulants and organic biopesticides for
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  hydroponics and other sectors.
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  And it's a good job we sell to other sectors because the hydroponic sector in
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  the UK and Europe is suffering at the moment.
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  A lot of vertical farms have gone bust, a lot of hydro shops are no longer in business.
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  My sales manager went out on the road yesterday in the Midlands around Birmingham,
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  Wolverhampton, place like that, Derby.
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  Loads of the shops you went to visit were not even open and had closed down
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  or just not trading at the moment.
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  And that's due to a number of reasons the hydroponic industry not helping itself,
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  but also government tax and regulations and
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  today I want to talk about a specific one about regulations in
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  Europe which includes the UK because we subscribe to a lot of the EU laws because
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  of historical purposes and because they're forced on us and one of those is
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  the biosize regulation and a really interesting article I read today about the use of peroxide.
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  Now peroxide is used to control biofilms
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  and microbial growth in hydroponics fairly standard you can't really
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  get away with not using some sort of disinfection in
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  hydroponics because algae and
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  bacteria love to live and grow in the same conditions that
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  plants do and also the plants are providing exudates
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  to feed microbes and they feed on these and they can get in the way and they
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  can cause issues so people use peroxide peroxide is a registered biocide and
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  silver stabilized hydroxide is used routinely for this and you can purchase
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  it for it and there's no issue with that however.
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  The men in grey suits who sit in their job and all their job is to enforce regulations
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  and stifle innovation and stifle business,
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  who really get on my effing TITs, they have decided in the Netherlands that
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  the growers are breaking the law.
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  And there was an interview with them where they said, what was it?
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  Possibly unsafe tomatoes are being produced.
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  And what it was is, rather than just doing single doses of hydrogen peroxide,
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  the growers were microdosing continuously the hydrogen peroxide in there.
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  And this is not allowed according to the label on the peroxide.
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  Has to be one-off treatments. And so they find all the growers that they found
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  that were doing this because it wasn't according to the label.
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  Now i have got no issue with this
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  if it's due to worker safety or it's due to corrosion and
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  it could physically damage you know unsafe materials
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  and things like that maybe the maybe it was corrosion issue it wasn't
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  it's because of potentially unsafe produce but
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  that's absolute nonsense because if you
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  apply peroxide to a crop even if
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  you put it on the actual crop just before you harvest
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  it most of the peroxide is spent within five to
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  30 minutes and it is effectively gone near zero residues
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  after one to three hours so the idea that they would be going to supermarkets
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  and these would be potentially unsafe tomatoes is absolute nonsense and it's
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  just a case of regulators seeing a problem because in the letter of the law
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  this is an issue but flipping heck mate.
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  You know, give cut farmers some
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  slack. This is not causing, there's no potential issue here whatsoever.
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  And it's a case of, you know, America innovates, China replicates, and Europe regulates.
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  And that's what it flipping loves to do and drives me bonkers.
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  And the answer to this is not, oh right let's just use common sense the answer
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  is is let's you know let's have a moratorium let's let's not moratorium a um
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  a consultation and let's let's spend hours and hours in brussels,
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  coming up with work task forces and rep what do they call them repertoires.
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  Repertoires and and let's you know spend millions of pounds you know to to slightly
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  change the allowance on hydrogen peroxide to allow inline dosing when really
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  it's just a bit of common sense would do.
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  I have the same issue here in the UK.
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  I go to a number of events that are supposed to be boosting biotechnology,
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  boosting the agri-tech sector and a third of the audience are there from regulators
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  who really their day-to-day job is stifling innovation and it It just gets me
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  annoyed that they attend these events because they're not helping industry.
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  The politicians on top say that they want to cut red tape, they want to cut
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  regulations, and they want the regulators to use common sense.
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  But, you know, if that meant that you didn't have a job, then obviously you're
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  just going to carry on enforcing these silly rules.
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  So, yeah, I mean...
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  Hydrogen peroxide don't continuously dose it make sure
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  you're only using it every now and again because you
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  could be creating possibly unsafe tomatoes or other
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  crops you do want to avoid continuously dosing
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  hydrogen peroxide if you can but that's because of it doesn't help
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  the roots it produces damage to the roots and
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  you will be reducing yield by continuously dosing
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  hydrogen peroxide so you're better off creating a
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  clean system and having other systems in place to at the
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  end of the day reduce your hydrogen peroxide you want to be using as little hydrogen peroxide as
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  possible just from a plant health and
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  yield perspective but i don't consider
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  there to be any danger with using hydrogen peroxide there is
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  to the user i mean to i hate hydrogen peroxide i
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  think it's a horrible chemical if you get it on your skin it
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  just instantly hurts and produces a burn but
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  i would have no issue with crops being sprayed
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  with it because i know it breaks down in such a quick time it's so reactive so
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  crazy situation over there in holland feel for those
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  farmers and yeah interesting that it's
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  been enforced in holland and not spain and italy
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  and mediterranean countries don't think the regulators over
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  there would have too much of an issue anywhere where they're
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  growing serious volumes it's definitely a northern european thing enforcing
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  the letter of the law and then down in the south of europe enforcing the spirit
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  of the law that seems to be the case one of the reasons why we've in europe
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  in the uk the majority voted for Brexit because we like to follow the letter of the law and.
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  And it is enforced, the letter of the law, whereas we find a lot of countries
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  in Europe it's not enforced, so you don't get a level playing field.
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  Anyway, that's enough of a rant. If you like this podcast,
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  please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, make sure you follow to hear more of
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  my stupid rants, and check out utreema.co.uk, where you can check out loads of fertilisers,
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  biostimulants, and biopesticides that comply with EU regulations on basic substances,
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  which when i talk about regulations and i say i hate
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  them if it wasn't for eu basic substance regulations
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  i would probably not be in business because i'm the only person who actually
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  bothered to read the regulations when they came out in 2016 and was able to
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  have a competitive advantage because of that so yeah it's not all bad news when
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  it comes to the european union i'll give you that all right that's been hired
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  upon its daily for today and i'll see you again tomorrow.