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Dutch Flower Auctions - A Day at Royal Flora Holland · 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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  The audio might be a bit inferior today because I'm recording this from a theme
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  park in Holland. It might be superior, in which case I should go to theme parks
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  more often to record my podcasts.
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  Just jumping on this podcast today because I've been to the Dutch flower market.
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  Flora Holland, this morning.
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  Got up bright and early to head over there
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  for a bit of a busman's holiday i didn't drag
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  my family along with me been on a holiday in am in not in
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  australia holland all week but i
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  thought i would go with my on my own to royal flora
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  holland which is the large flower auction and
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  to say that it's large is a bit of an understatement this thing
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  is massive by anyone's standards
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  even by american standards millions and millions
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  of flowers are traded here every day
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  and the visitor center i mean
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  if you're in horticulture you know this but what was
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  surprising was just how good the visitor center was i
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  mean you got to basically walk along
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  the length of the whole operation and it is
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  a massive operation so this visitor center
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  you're walking for about a kilometer or more up
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  and up the through the operation on a sort of
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  a gangway in the air above
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  all the hustle and bustle so the all the hustle and bustle is going on.
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  Below you you can see the old auction rooms that
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  used to operate there they don't no longer operate a
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  in-person auction because everything's gone online so
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  all the people in the auction i don't know what you
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  call them the customers and the auctioneers they're
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  all sat at computer on the various warehouses all
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  that surround this around just outside Amsterdam near Schiphol
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  airports and the old auction rooms are
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  still there though you can see them and I'll post some pictures on our social media and.
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  They've got the old Dutch auction clocks which the reverse
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  of a normal auction so they sort of count down from sort of 60 seconds and it's
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  the first person to bid at the highest price so the price drops until someone
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  bids they then say how many they want to bid at that price and then they go
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  back onto auction and someone might buy a higher price or a lower price and so.
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  They used to bus all of the flowers in and they'd auction and they'd bus them
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  all out. And there was a couple of auction houses.
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  Now it's all done online, but they're still moving millions and millions of flowers.
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  So it's still worth a visit because you just get to see what does a million
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  hydrangeas and two million roses look like.
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  And you see all the trains, the little land trains going around.
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  And hundreds and hundreds of people, this is not automated so much.
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  Obviously everything's computerized but they're all still moved by
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  people and then they the the
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  flowers are going off to any warehouses and
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  companies nearby they then get hoisted up into
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  the air and flung through a sort of conveyor belt
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  system that is automated so they go off and
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  today there was just either hydrangeas are really popular or at
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  the moment or it was hydrangea day because there was
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  lots of white roses and just train
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  after train of hydrangea which was amazing to see so you
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  just walk along and and see it all and you can wave at
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  the people down down below and they'll wave back at you and
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  there's a few people in a visitor center at a gift shop selling flower related
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  things there was nothing with like a i've been to the flower auctions of holland
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  t-shirts so i was a bit disappointed with that but yeah it was good and then
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  at the end there was a little sort of interactive plate,
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  I don't know, museum pieces where you could pretend to be an auctioneer and
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  see whether you were an auctioneer.
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  You could drive one of the little trucks that they drive around on.
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  There were some Lego flowers of the flowers.
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  And then you could take your picture as if you were like, you know,
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  green screened onto the flower auction or some tulip fields and stuff like this.
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  So I was the real sad person on my own, middle-aged man taking photos of himself
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  pretending to be in a tulip field and things like this so really good day out it was 12 euros.
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  For a lot of other tourist destinations, it was remarkably good value.
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  Free parking on top of the roof of one of the warehouses. There was a restaurant nearby.
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  The only problem was that the motorway was, the junction was shut on my way
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  back. And so I got in a real tizzy because my phone wasn't working.
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  My phone GPS took me to Skip Hall Airport.
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  I had to park up in a car park and find an exit. I was getting very angry.
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  You know me, I'm quite easily agitated. and i've
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  managed to find my way out and back to my theme park where
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  we're camping and spent the day the aqua park
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  so that's been fun so yeah it's
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  been um really interesting seeing a lot of windmills what else have we seen
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  a lot of venlo greenhouses on our trips but this is the first one sort of like
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  busman's holiday i've been to um i do want to come back to holland obviously
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  i go to green tech every year but there's also a bike ride that goes through
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  all the greenhouses in the spring.
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  And i think that would be an epic journey so if
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  you'd like to join me on that greenhouse tour it's probably all
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  in dutch but if you if you speak dutch then you could accompany me
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  and translate as we cycle through with them all one other
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  thing i saw which was really interesting just looking back at my photos we
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  went to the hague we're staying near the hague a place called
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  dunrel in the sand dunes and we
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  we went to the beach one day and we drove past
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  a building that had green curtains
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  not green walls because they were like climbers climbing up but it
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  looked like it was like almost like lego blocks made of green foliage
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  it's really good and so it gave the
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  exterior of this building half green half glass appearance
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  half foliage half glass it was a big square box
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  a bit like the corby cube if you were been in
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  corby or there's a big building in seville it's a big box type
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  cube so like a giant ibc really but
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  with foliage all around it and parked up
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  nearby took some pictures turns out it was the international criminal
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  court and so yeah i think that's where
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  slobberdam milosevic was tried another nasty
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  people around the world depending on your world view of course
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  but yeah i parked up outside the international criminal.
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  Court illegally parked so yeah i might find myself back at the international
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  criminal court accused of terrible parking in the hague so that's been my trip
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  to holland i didn't get time to stand this year because Amsterdam with kids is just not a fun day out.
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  Trying to not get them run over by trams. It's more fun when you're on your own.
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  So yeah, I went to Utrecht as well. That was a beautiful city.
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  I thoroughly recommend Utrecht. I went to the Miffy Museum.
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  That was just horrific. Three hours of my life.
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  But yeah, apart from that, Utrecht was banging.
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  And there was a restaurant called, was it Winklevont? Thank you.
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  Winkle von stinkle something like this which made
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  me laugh yeah so if you're in find yourself in utrecht go to winkle von
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  stinkle and if you find yourself in near shiphall
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  airport and you've got some time to kill and you've got the you can find it
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  on public transport or you've got a car then definitely check out royal flora
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  holland it's the dutch auction house it's got a visitor center there is only
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  one visitor center you'll find royal flora holland outlets all around Holland,
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  but this is only the one near Schiphol Airport that has a visitor centre.
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  And obviously a lot of these plants will be flown in from Kenya,
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  some will be coming from Colombia, some from China, but a lot will be grown
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  here in the Netherlands.
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  A lot will be grown, imported in from Germany, it was the infographic showed,
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  and a fair few from Belgium.
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  So it's not just the dutch that i grow in ornamental plants
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  a lot of um potted plants were also on sale or auctioned off today but no vegetables
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  it's not it's only ornamental flowers and no hardy nursery stock just protected
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  crops so that's been that's been hydroponics daily for today thought hope you
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  would find that interesting and until tomorrow thank you very much for listening.