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Hydroponics on the Alkaline Edge: Crops That Cope with High pH · 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, the founder of Utreema Ltd.
• 0:09
  We make interesting fertilisers, novel biostimulants and organic biopesticides.
• 0:14
  And yesterday's episode was all about plants that thrive in acidic conditions
• 0:19
  and why you shouldn't necessarily grow them in acidic conditions in a hydroponic system.
• 0:26
  Today I will do the other end of the spectrum and talk
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  about plants that tolerate or grow in very alkaline
• 0:32
  soils so we'll start off with crops
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  that grow in very alkaline soils and what which
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  ones they are and sort of phs
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  we're talking about so barley very alkaline but
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  does suffer from manganese deficiency when it's grown in very
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  alkaline conditions sugar beet that hat
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  that handles both salinity and alkaline
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  ph which often go hand in hand soils that are
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  alkaline are often saline and vice versa marginal soils
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  with high ph cotton loves some
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  or will grow in alkaline calcareous sodic sodium
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  rich soils so think about central asia all
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  the stans that's where cotton grows sorghum and
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  very fast growing almost like maize but much
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  more tolerant of high ph alfalfa that's
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  a legume so it's a nitrogen fixing plant that
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  will grow in very high ph and a number of nitrogen fixes will
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  as well and then buffalo grass bermuda grass
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  so you could have some high ph sport stuff but what
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  about plants that are not necessarily commonly thought of as crops because there
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  could be potential there if you've got a very very alkaline water and you are
• 1:47
  struggling to get say ro water or you have to use it for some reason.
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  Then maybe they would be an option because the ones I've mentioned so far, they are tolerant up to.
• 2:02
  8 to 8.5, not beyond there. So what happens if we go beyond there?
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  So there you're talking about very tolerant plants.
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  Tamarisk or Tamarix, which is his common scientific name.
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  Eliagnus, but these are not. These are more shrubs, ornamental shrubs.
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  To get an actual plant you can eat, you have to go to Atriplex and that can
• 2:24
  tolerate pHs above 8.5 and high sodium levels.
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  So atriplex is known by its better name garden arach
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  or red arach or simply arach or
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  mountain spinach and you can eat this one this
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  particular species in the atriplex genus and it
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  tastes a bit like spinach and could be a good alternative
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  to spinach in hydroponics because a lot of large vertical
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  farms struggle to grow spinach
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  there it sort of kills itself when you
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  grow it so you can't grow it for a long time so it's a good so a
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  good option for when as a substitute for spinach maybe no zatz substitute it's
• 3:05
  not doesn't taste as good or maybe just a like for like replacement it's in
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  the goose foot family the chenopodiaceae which is the same as things like i
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  think like a lot of like buckwheat and things like this.
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  It's native to asia and europe and so if you're looking for all around the world
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  really though it's widely naturalized in canada united states australia and
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  new zealand so you'll be able to get some seeds of this plant definitely even
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  if it means going for a walk it does red up as well,
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  produces a there's a rubra variety a red
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  variety but if you expose it to uv light and
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  then it'll potentially get you get some nice red type spinach.
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  So i think that's a good one if you're looking for a crop to grow in your hydroponics
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  system i'd check out atriplex red or ranch or just gardener ranch other plants
• 3:53
  that will tolerate alkaline conditions prosopis or mesquite popular euphrates
• 4:00
  popular so again that's middle eastern.
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  Saksual. Saksual. Isn't that a great name for a plant? I'm going to grow myself some Saksual.
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  Oh, hallozylon aflilum and olives, figs and pomegranates.
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  I'm going to do some research on Saksual now and find out all about this plant
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  and tell you about it because I like saying the word.
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  So it's in the same family as the Aranth, but it's not eaten.
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  It's a tree or a shrub that It grows in the Aral Sea, in the Stans,
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  Uzbekistan and around there, former Soviet Union.
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  And it's just used as firewood and it tolerates the very high pH,
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  high sodium levels there.
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  So unfortunately, sexual is not going to be a crop that you can grow.
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  What were the other ones I mentioned?
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  Prosopis. I think that has got some uses, hasn't it?
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  Let's have a look let's stick that into wikipedia and do some research on the fly,
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  yep there's loads of species yeah i'm going to pause this now it's too much
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  for me to do whilst talking to you that one's used as a as a spice in curries
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  but again it's a tree or a shrub
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  so not particularly of use in hydroponics so if you're going if you're going
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  to cultivate greener ranch and you're looking for a high ph vertigation solution
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  and you want to experiment with different pHs, then let me know.
• 5:24
  I'm happy to advise on that.
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  Probably just like this the really acidic loving plants
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  you might not need to go really
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  high so above 8.5 if you were experimenting with
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  greener ranch or gardener ranch you would probably be
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  fine at 6.5 or 7.0 so
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  closer to the top range of the sweet spots so it
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  because it's these plants are tolerant of
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  these conditions they don't necessarily need these
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  conditions so if you find if you're using something like gold leaf or liquid
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  gold as it's called in the uk you'd probably be fine
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  with it with that for such a plant like gardener
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  ranch it grows in gardens it grows all around the world so it doesn't
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  need those very high alkaline conditions
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  it just will tolerate them so for whatever
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  reason maybe something in its chemistry maybe something to do with its soil
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  biome if the bacteria it feeds
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  around it who knows we don't know but i
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  think that's really interesting i would like to try that plant if anyone wants to
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  grow some and send some in i'll be happy to try it so there
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  you go i actually think you pronounce it or a k
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  i've been saying our ranch have an
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  iron there's no there's no n in it or a k green or
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  a k atriplex is easier for me to say on that bombshell yeah that's been hydroponics
• 6:40
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  Check it out. Thank you very much, AI. See you tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
• 7:16
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