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Edible Flowers in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
• 0:06
  I'm your host Dr Russell Sharp, I am the owner of Utrema Limited.
• 0:11
  We make a number of hydroponic inputs and inputs for soil cultivation as well,
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  but hydroponics is my passion and that's why I do a daily podcast about it.
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  And today we're talking about a really interesting crop, shall we say,
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  and an extremely profitable crop if you get it right.
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  And that is edible flowers. So blooms you can eat.
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  So as I say, extremely profitable if you can get it right.
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  These are the flowers you see on food, cakes, baked goods.
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  They're not just for decoration, but they're not just garnishes either
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  they can be cocktail toppers salad ingredients as
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  i say they can be used in baking done right they're high
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  value niche crops and customers will
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  pay an absolute premium for edible flowers
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  of the of really good color freshness and
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  cleanliness and there's a number of
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  caveats hidden within there isn't there so obviously it's
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  a niche crop so you're not going to be producing kilotons of
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  this it's not going to be a replacement for wheat or potatoes these are very
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  much very small quantities and not everybody's going to want them so some people
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  will want them some you know i've got family members who are absolutely.
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  Obsessed with edible flowers shout out to
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  hannah and other people i know who
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  would just pick them off their food before they even ate them as i
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  say you people will be also pay a premium for color freshness and cleanliness
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  so they've got to be you've got to be really on top of your game you can't be
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  producing crops that have drip damaged or got powdery mildew on they've or they've
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  been left on post harvest for a number of days and they've gone a bit soggy and things like that,
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  so let's deep go into a deep dive about edible flowers and why do they work
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  so well in hydroponics Well, the first is that you can grow them without the need of pesticides.
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  A lot of these things are like pansies that would otherwise get a lot of aphids on them.
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  So if you can grow them in a grow room, then you can remove the aphids.
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  And chefs and retailers want flowers. They can put straight onto a plate without washing.
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  If you have to wash an edible flower, then it's going to be ruined.
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  You can wash basil just about. You'd lose some of the quality.
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  You don't want to. You don't want to.
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  The fact that it can be grown away from soil this is a massive win for edible flowers the guys at.
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  Aqua farms in leicester they grow a number
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  of edible flowers for all the restaurants the high value restaurants in
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  leicester they're a really good team they've grown a number of different edible
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  flowers over the years and they're the first time i've seen it been grown commercially
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  they've got a really clean setup so they've got no soil no grits things like
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  this so yeah and they've got year-round production as well so that's another
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  key thing with these sorts of,
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  crops obviously Christmas is going to be a big one people
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  are going to want to have edible flowers at Christmas and so
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  you can't just have summer blooms so hydroponics really
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  fits into there so what we're going to be growing our edible
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  flowers well nasturtiums a obvious
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  choice these have been grown and eaten for a
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  long time before the phase the
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  fad of edible flowers came around they've got more of a
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  peppery taste though so they're great in salads rather than
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  on baked goods your violas and
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  your pansies a very mild sweet flavor they're
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  ideal for desserts and cake toppings borage
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  so we've got sort of like a cucumber flavor perfect for
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  cocktails borage that's one that if you can exclude caterpillars then that's
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  where borage grows really well i've seen fields of borage where you can actually
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  hear them being eaten by the caterpillars and the it was that crop was being grown for.
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  Pet supplements like horse supplements so they
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  couldn't spray any pesticides on it and so the farmer just had to listen to
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  these caterpillars just devouring his crop
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  which was a very high value crop a calendula
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  that's a another very common one strong color
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  petals used in salad and as a saffron substitute
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  dianthus they're often called pinks
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  because of their color but you can also get white ones sweet clover-like
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  taste popular for bake bakery decorations so
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  edible flowers are really becoming popular now in um high-end baking begonias
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  they have a tart citrus flavor but they've got really bright colors and they're
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  great for salads they're much larger flowers than say a viola so begonias i
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  didn't know you could eat begonias really interesting.
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  Genus begonias because they they grow in the tropics and
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  there's loads of different species if you go to Hiroshima
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  botanical gardens they have one of
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  the world's if not the world's best collection of
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  begonias really recommend if you're going to Hiroshima suck
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  off the the nuclear war
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  memorial it's rubbish get to the botanical
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  gardens it's brilliant but do go and see the ginkgo trees
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  that survived the atomic blast they are
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  very interesting back to edible flowers
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  marigolds or tajitis as they're
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  known they've been grown for a long time for their edible flowers their
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  citrus and spice notes petals brighten any
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  savory dish so they're more for a savory and then
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  herb flowers like chive basil mint coriander they're
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  all edible and they have obviously got a lot of flavor in
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  them so basil we always think when it's flowering it's
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  that's the crop gone then it's wasted but if you could then pivot to sell those
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  flowers as edible flowers you're on for a winner because these are extremely
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  high value per kilo sold the problem is it's not how being able to grow them
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  it's being able to sell them and as i've had experience with trying to sell samphire you can.
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  Produce the world's best niche high-value crop
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  but persuading somebody to buy it
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  is really difficult like i thought well they're
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  buying in sandfire from israel and it's horrible it's
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  woody all the reviews on the websites are terrible i'll
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  just supply them with uk all year round succulent material and
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  getting a buyer to actually change supplier especially for a supermarket is
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  ridiculously difficult because yes they may get a better produce but at the
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  end of the day if they if it goes wrong then their job is on the line so they'd
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  rather keep with shit product than.
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  Risk changing to a better product so that
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  is the really difficult problem in hydroponics and
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  and getting hydroponic business set up is
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  convincing a buyer that's big enough
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  for your your setup to actually change to
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  you so with edible flowers you might
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  produce brilliant edible flowers but convincing someone to use them
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  that's going to be the real key that's the challenge it's not
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  it's the hydroponics is not the challenge the plants it's not the challenge it's
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  convincing somebody to move suppliers to
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  you how are we actually going to grow them there's loads
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  of different techniques but nft seems to be the most common one
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  it's great for compact varieties fast turnover i've
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  seen it in dwc but it might
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  be a bit of overkill dwc maybe nasturtium something like
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  that cocoa perlite can
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  be used for larger flowering plants and vertical towers
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  and vertical walls seem to be good for maximizing space
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  and smaller flowers like violas and herb flowers
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  so a lot of interest in vertical towers and vertical
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  walls in a lot of companies doing that in the uk things like
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  tunnel grows in italy and other underground sort of locations they do a lot
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  of edible flowers and herbs in those sorts of systems and they seem to work
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  very well obviously the nutrients and the ph will depend on the actual specific
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  species you're growing my tip would be not to mix number a number of different species in the.
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  Nutrient tank have a separate nutrient tank for each of them because they'll each be pushing out.
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  Different chemicals could be allelopathic that
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  are poisonous toxic to the other plants or
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  they could be taking different nutrient amounts from each
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  one so you will not be able to fine-tune your system if you have different species
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  all in one sort of system and they could be negatively interacting so separate
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  ones and then you'll be able to control it much better but there isn't one that's
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  going to need a particularly high pH.
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  Maybe nasturtiums, because they're in the brassica family, might need a slightly
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  higher calcium level, slightly higher pH...
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  What species do we look at? Just looking at my species I talked about,
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  I can't see anything there that's going to need particularly dianthus.
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  Again, sorry, yeah, that's what scientists call a calcicole or a calcium-loving,
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  high pH-loving species.
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  So again, you might want to give that a bit more calcium and a slightly higher pH, maybe 6.5.
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  Avoid excessive nitrogen because too
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  much vegetative growth means fewer flowers and
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  poorer quality flowers so good levels
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  of potassium and phosphorus and and good
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  light levels around the plant good aeration to
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  prevent things like gray mold gray mold will be the
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  killer here avoiding fungus gnats
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  because they're just going to get in the way and what's
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  it fungus gnats aphids and yeah things like that really really
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  got to be careful on your inlet and your outlet filters maybe
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  have a an airlock going into your grow room just
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  because you don't want any aphids mites thrips powdery
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  mildew getting in because when they do you're going to have to shut down operations
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  and kill off all your plants and that's going to lead to massive losses in production
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  i'd probably have a uv filter running through the air one of those air uv filters
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  just to kill off any spores that might be in the air as well things like that.
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  Question would be would you need pollination or not don't need pollination to
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  actually grow the flowers you would for seed production or fruit production
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  but we're not going that far,
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  pollination can shorten the usable life of a flower for culinary purposes so
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  you don't probably want any pollinators hanging around so you don't want them
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  in a sort of same grow room where you might have tomatoes where you've got bumblebees
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  and things like this and other pollinators.
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  Hoverflies and things like this so that's something to consider i would keep
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  my humidity on the low side of the optimum just to fight things like gray mold
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  botrytis things like that mildew.
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  You want a good level of air movement, but without wind damage,
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  those delicate flowers.
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  You want a high movement of air, but not a high speed of air.
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  And then light intensity, obviously too much light and it'll bleach the petals,
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  but too little is going to cause weak growth and weak colour anyway,
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  and increased susceptibility to aphids. So it's a balancing act there.
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  Harvesting time, early in the morning when the blooms are fully open, is the time to harvest.
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  That's because they're going to have the most amount of turga amounts
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  of water in their cells you harvest at the
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  end of the day when the plants have been transpiring evaporating water
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  from their tissues then they're going to have a much lower shelf
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  life and not as springy and as turgid
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  once you've harvested them you've got to harvest
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  them into food grade containers these are food stuff uh
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  avoid stacking to prevent bruising and store
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  at two to five degrees celsius and then you
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  increase the humidity to prevent wilting so there in your
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  post-harvest care you're reducing the temperature
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  and the humidity goes up which will happen
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  anyway when you reduce that humidity but temperature anyway probably deliver
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  quickly most edible flowers have a three to seven day shelf life i would probably
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  put a few of those little tiny thermometer and hygrometers in the in the in
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  the in the little clamshells that you normally sell them in little plastic clamshells or recycling.
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  Recycled clamshells or you could put a data logger in there and ask the customer
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  to return them every time so you just know what the temperatures and humidity
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  are during the whole supply chain and you can control that supply chain you
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  control that that delivery to the fine dining restaurants as opposed to just
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  going to a wholesaler, into a market and things like that.
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  These are high-end conditions.
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  Wedding caterers are going to love edible flowers, obviously, and wedding cake.
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  Bakers that's the word yep high-end grocers cocktail
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  bars artisan bakeries i've got a friend ben
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  who runs an artisan bakery in peterborough shout
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  out to him i've been trying to grow a few things for him i want
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  to grow golden popcorn shoots
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  that's one of the things i want to grow hydroponically for him and just
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  a very good sourdough so that'd be good and farmer's
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  markets you could potentially sell them at farmer's markets as well if you
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  wanted to lose a day of your week selling them so
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  yeah edible flowers they tick all the boxes for hydroponics
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  they're high value they're in demand they're precision
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  they're rewarding to grow and people
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  will pay a premium for the quality and freshness that you can give them with with
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  growing them hydroponically and as i say the biggest issue will be convincing
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  someone to change to your supply and that's where your guile and your charm
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  comes in two things i'm probably lacking in that's why i wasn't very good as
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  a hydroponic grower myself with the sand fire but you know onwards and upwards if you,
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  have grown edible flowers you think i've missed something if you've
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  got some feedback then i'd love to hear from you if
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  you are looking to set up an edible flower production system and you're looking
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  for some high value specialist inputs then speak to us at utreema we have got
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  a whole host of different products that could be useful in edible flowers and
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  controlling any of the issues that you might have with them okay until tomorrow
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  that's been hydroponics daily thank you very much for listening and goodbye.