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The Periodic Table of Plant Health: A deep dive into crop nutrition · Cereal Killers

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Hello there and welcome back to the podcast. I'm Dr.
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Russell Sharp and I'm the founder of Utrema Limited and at Utrema we created
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a periodic table of plant health about a year ago and we include that with every order.
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However, a guy called Lee, one of our customers, he said you've never done a
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podcast about this and it's a glaring oversight so I'm going to do it now.
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It's going to be a podcast for grass me up our lawn science podcast our turf science podcast.
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Serial killers are arable crops podcast and hydroponics daily are obviously
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hydroponics podcast so if you are a if you buy a lawn care product you get a
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periodic table of turf health,
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included with every order and if you buy a hydroponic or an arable crop,
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type product you get a periodic table of plant health they're slightly different
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you can request either and you can even request if you're a professional grower,
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then you can request a big a1 poster that we have and we we mail that out in big tubes,
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but for most orders you get an a4 size poster you can also download it off our
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website and it was interesting i was listening to a podcast all about the art
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and science of podcasting and they said You should never direct people to your website.
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You should never give out www.utrema.co.uk because nobody is stopping their
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car on the hard shoulder to type down a link to a website.
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If you, once you finish driving your tractor, your van, your Subaru Impreza,
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go on to utreema.co.uk as soon as you've finished listening to this podcast
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and you can grab the periodic table of Turf Health or just place any order and
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you'll get one included.
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So what is it and why do you need it?
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Well, the periodic table of elements, that is probably over 130 years old.
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It was invented by a Russian scientist called Mendelev, very, very clever guy.
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He predicted where all the elements would fit based on their atomic structure.
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He was so confident in his periodic Table of Elements, he left spaces for elements
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he knew would be found in the future.
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That takes some balls to do that, to say these things don't exist,
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but they will be found in the future and they will have this property and they
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will have this many protons and things like that.
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So he got a lot of flack for that and people thought he was crazy,
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but he was found to be true.
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And you will have looked at the Periodic Table of Elements when you were learning
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chemistry in school you'll see it sort of goes from left to right and their
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group elements are grouped by,
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their chemical properties and that's there's about 118 let me just check my yeah 118.
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All going from hydrogen, the simplest element, all the way through to organison,
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which has been found fairly recently in the last 10, 15 years.
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And that's also named after a Russian scientist. So 118 elements,
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most of them are radioactive, and they're grouped together by their properties.
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And what I have done with the periodic table of turf health is group,
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restructure it, and group them by the nutrients for plants.
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So the macronutrients, the micronutrients, the non-mineral nutrients,
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non-essential elements, and things that are toxic.
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So I'll go through the different groups in more detail here,
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because it's a good way of wasting about 30 minutes on a podcast.
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And the longer you listen to this podcast, the higher my podcast chart figures
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go. It's not just how many downloads I get, it's how long people listen to.
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Better stop waffling because if you turn off now, then I don't get the figures.
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So the primary macronutrients, these are the ones you will be most familiar
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with. And these are stated on the label in virtually every country. They are NPK.
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Now, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. Interestingly, we probably should do an
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episode all about reading the labels on a fertilizer because they differ depending
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on which country you're in.
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UK is different to Ireland, and Ireland is actually different to the EU, and US is different.
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So in the UK, they're all measured in weight per volume, so grams per percentage,
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weight, so grams per kilos per litre, and nitrogen is elemental,
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phosphorus is as an oxide, and potassium is an oxide.
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But as you go to Ireland, there is their elemental forms, and then if you go
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to Europe or America, they're weight for weight.
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Anyway so but we can go into that in much more detail you don't need to know
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that now for the periodic table of turf elements nitrogen obviously for protein and chlorophyll,
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massive boost in growth if you apply nitrogen what happens if you don't have
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too much where you get chlorosis yellowing of older leaves and slow growth.
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And you will find nitrogen deficiency especially in waterlogged or neglected
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soils so the sports turf field i look after for example is extremely yellow
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because it's nitrogen deficient next up we've got phosphorus,
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that's required for the synthesis of dna and energy production there's a chemical
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called atp you might have heard of it is the energy it's a thing that provides
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energy to all chemical reactions and that the p stands for phosphorus,
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you don't have enough of that what's the symptom purpling of the leaves and
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you get phosphorus deficiency especially in calcium rich soils or if your ph
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is too high so if you're grown in hydroponics and your ph goes flies through the roof,
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phosphorus will fall out solution or if you add a lot of calcium if you lime
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and add phosphorus fertilizers they will lock up that's why we have a product
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called phosphorus liberator which is our best-selling product this time of year all those wheat,
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crops going into the field farmers are loving the use of phosphorus liberator
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at the moment, especially with the price of phosphorus fertilizers.
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And then finally, the last primary macronutrient, it's called a macronutrient
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because plants need lots of it.
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Potassium that's required for enzyme activity keeping the cells turgid and for controlling stomata,
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what happens if you don't have enough potassium you get chlorosis at the leaf
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tip and the edge of the leaves,
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and you find that in under fertilized soil or very very sandy soil if you're
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in hydroponics you're never going to get potassium deficiency because they're
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just those fertilizers are just full of potassium,
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so if you apply any fertilizer it's probably going to contain potassium because
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it links a lot of other elements to it.
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Now after NPK you've got your secondary macronutrients so elements that plants
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need in large amounts but not as much as the first ones.
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Sulfur is the first one required for protein synthesis, chloroplast functioning
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so the organelles inside the cells and all sorts of things to do with photosynthesis
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so if you don't have enough sulfur you get light green leaves,
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and where do you find sulfur deficiency when you're using granular fertilizers.
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So a lot of people in arable and sports turf rely on granular fertilizers,
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maybe because they don't have a liquid sprayer, but these often contain no sulfur
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because they don't want the fertilizer to cake and block up.
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You will also find that plants need more sulfur now than they did in the past,
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because pollution used to provide a lot of sulfur for arable fields and golf
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courses and things like that.
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So coal-fired power stations used to provide a lot of sulfur.
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Soap factories and things like this used to provide a lot of sulfur.
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And now we have lovely clean air and the crops don't get as much sulfur.
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So you need to apply a bit more.
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The second secondary micronutrient is calcium. And just like you,
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you need it for strong bones or calcium. Plants need it for strong cell walls,
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and cell division in growing tissues.
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So if you don't have enough calcium, you'll see blackening of new growth,
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often a darkening and dying necrosis, death-like, almost like frostbite you'll
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find with calcium deficiency.
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So you get that when there's inconsistent water availability,
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acidic soils or you're using liquid fertilizers that lack calcium so just like
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granular fertilizers always lack sulfur,
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your your phosphogens your miracle grows any liquid fertilizer that you get
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from the cheap and cheaper products will lack calcium okay.
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Next, and the final secondary macronutrient is magnesium.
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Magnesium is the central atom in the chlorophyll molecule surrounded by iron.
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So if you don't have enough magnesium, obviously you're not going to have enough
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chlorophyll and you'll get interveinal chlorosis of older leaves.
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That's the classic sign of magnesium deficiency.
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And you get that, often you get magnesium deficiency when you put too much calcium
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on or too much potassium.
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So perhaps you've put on a load
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of potassium nitrate or you've limed your soil with builder's lime not,
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horticultural or what's called dolomitic lime and so you can get magnesium deficiency
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because the plant roots can't differentiate between the calcium and the magnesium ion so,
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often if there's an excess of calcium or magnesium you get deficiency in the
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other even if there is ample in the soil for the plant to absorb,
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because it's struggling to absorb it can't differentiate between them so they
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those are the primary and the secondary macronutrients.
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NPK, and you can't really say the secondary macronutrients as their abbreviation,
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SCAMG, or sulfur calcium magnesium.
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It's easy to just say the full scientific name.
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Then we come on to the micronutrients.
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And various crops will need various amounts of that. So if we're in sports turf
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and lawns, iron is the primary micronutrient you need to apply.
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If you're in arable crops a lot of people are putting manganese down at the
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moment and so yeah you will know which one you use so,
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Iron, component of the chlorophyll molecule, if you don't have it,
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you get chlorosis again, this time on the younger leaves because the plants
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are struggling to move it around the plants.
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Where do you get iron deficiency most often? High soil pH. So if you've got
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high soil pH, you'll get iron deficiency.
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Now in sports turf, lawn care, they will apply extra iron because they want
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to blacken moss, kill moss, and they will want the iron to attach to the tannins
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in the cell walls and produce a nice dark colour.
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So you put iron on, you think it's gone green, it hasn't, it's just gone darker.
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Now in cereal crops, often agricultural soils have got enough iron,
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too much iron, so you're probably not going to include a fertilizer that contains that.
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So iron depends on what you need. A lot of people put on iron sulfate,
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but that also kills the soil biology, the sulfuric acid in the product,
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so you can put on a chelated iron.
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And we have our ultimate iron, which I've talked about in the past,
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which has a nice sticker on it that keeps it on the leaf for longer,
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but there are loads of good iron products on there.
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The second micronutrient, boron, numerous functions in flowering and fruiting
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and metabolism, also involved in calcium nutrition.
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So boron does a lot of things, but really the symptoms are only visible when
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the plants are flowering and seeding.
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So if you're in sports turf, that's not an issue. If you're growing lettuce,
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it's not really an issue.
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So boron deficiency really becomes an issue in systems with no fertilizer addition,
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or soils with very low organic matter because boron is a key component of organic matter.
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So you might find a few niche crops that become boron deficient. It's not a big one.
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I've got a great idea for a boron product, a chelated boron that uses.
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Chemistry extracted from seaweed and provides boron in an amazing new way but,
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the market for boron fertilizers is just so small most boron fertilizers is
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boron ethanol amine which is a chelatin agent similar to edta and you can buy
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that in bulk at fairly cheap prices so,
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although i've got an amazing idea for it it's really not worth me making an
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effort to push it out there,
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manganese that's needed for chloroplast formation so not chlorophyll but the
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sort of internal cellular structure that houses all the photosynthesis for the cell,
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manganese is needed for that and you get manganese deficiency in high soil ph
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so if you've got might be combined with iron deficiency as well so if you're
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growing in crops on high ph soils then you might get manganese deficiency,
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nearly all of the manganese products out there are manganese sulfate solutions
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of varying quality you get cloudy ones that are cheap and cheerful or very clear
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lovely pink products the problem is they're not chelated i did produce a chelate,
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but it wasn't very stable so we didn't commercialize that you can buy manganese
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edta but the vast majority of manganese that goes out there is has to be cost
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effective so it goes as manganese sulfate.
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The next element is zinc. Zinc is needed for auxin synthesis,
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so the hormone responsible for cell division and rooting, and it functions in a number of enzymes.
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If you don't have enough zinc, you get interveinal chlorosis and grey-brown
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spots, and you're only really going to find it again in high pH conditions.
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And so you never get it, and it's always less extreme than iron.
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You will find people putting a lot of zinc on the soil, they'll find a bump,
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and the crops will increasing yield but that's probably because zinc is going
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to be killing off some of the pathogens in the soil that weren't,
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high enough levels to cause the disease symptoms but you know things like that
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so when you put micronutrient products on this is my big bandwagon you often
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get a bump in yield you often see your grass grow lovely and green
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but it could be that it's at the expense of soil biology and
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you could be poisoning your soil so that is especially the case for zinc copper.
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A little bit towards iron but especially nickel which we're going to talk about
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and cobalt so don't apply nickel cobalt,
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use zinc and copper sparingly okay next one is molybdenum often confused with
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manganese and manganese is often confused with magnesium very similar,
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sounding elements molybdenum is needed in tiny amounts it's for the function
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of enzymes involved in nitrogen metabolism,
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you're probably only going to see deficiencies in very low soil ph,
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so molybdenum not something you need to worry about we add it in fertilizers
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in tiny amounts and you it's a very very expensive fertilizer,
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if you've come to the conclusion that your plants are molybdenum deficiency
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get a second and a third opinion because it's probably not that.
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I've never come across a severe case of it next one is which i've never seen
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a case of is copper deficiency,
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copper is required for photosynthesis, enzyme functioning, lignin synthesis, so wood production,
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only ever going to get it in really, really high pH conditions.
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Extremes, much more extreme than you would get, you would first see signs of iron deficiency.
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So you're never going to need to add copper. You just need to control your pH.
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Now you add copper. This is one of the things I disagree with a lot of people,
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a lot of regenerative people about.
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You don't want to be adding copper. You will see a yield bump.
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You will see grass grow better. Your crops grow better.
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Your plants grow better if you add copper but that's probably because you're
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killing pathogens even pests by adding it it's also a toxic heavy metal so you
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could be harming yourself,
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next one is chlorine chlorine is required for osmotic function it's near impossible
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to be deficient in chlorine because plants need such small amounts of it and
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it's in lots of things like water and soil,
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in very very in doses that would be probably,
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not ideal for the plant if not slightly toxic so
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never add chlorine you're only going to get deficiency in chlorine if you were
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growing in reverse osmosis or distilled water with a super pure fertilizer
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that's the only time you're ever going to see symptoms so never add a fertilizer
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containing chlorine although chlorine is in a lot of fertilizers
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it's in a lot of granular fertilizers and it's in a lot of cheap and cheerful nasty products,
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we don't add chlorine in any of our additives it is the formulator's go-to form so potassium,
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magnesium chloride, calcium chloride.
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These are all really cheap. They're super soluble products. They tank mix with
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all the other ingredients.
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Chlorines, chlorides. They're fantastic products for me as a formulator. Fantastic.
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Now, when it gets to the crop, nowhere near as good.
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You produce the chlorines of
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no good to the plant, probably toxic to the plant in the levels applied.
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Not to the point where it's going to harm the plants significantly,
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but it's not going to kill them.
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But it's the it's the cheap and nasty way of getting fertilizers in but solves
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a lot of problems and you don't get many complaints so that's why people use
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it the next one is sodium just like chlorine,
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it's near impossible to be deficient in sodium because sodium is in in water
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it's in soil it's always probably going to be in excess and,
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you know you think of like over irrigated soils in the northern africa you get,
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uh you get sodium issues and.
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In india they've irrigated the crops so much with high sodium water that they
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can't grow any crops anymore there they can only grow flower crops and things
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like this they can't grow edible crops and so sodium is nearly always,
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not a benefit it's only essential in plants possessing c4 photosynthesis,
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and well one other option so c4 is things like cacti,
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succulent plants also in sports turf bermudagrass zoysia so if you're working
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in sports turf in tropical regions or subtropical regions you might be familiar
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with bermudagrass and zoysia but,
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you're still probably not going to want to apply too much sodium because if
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you're in a subtropical or tropical region there's normally going to be and puts sodium around.
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The only other exception is sugar beets and beet crops, manglewurzels, things like this.
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Sugar beet, whether this is a Swiss chard, they require a bit of sodium because
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they're so evolved to living by the sea that they need to have sodium for their cells to be turgid.
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But apart from, you know, niche uses like that, if you can call sugar beet a
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niche use, then avoid sodium.
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And the last one of the micronutrients is nickel.
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Nickel is needed if you're going to break down urea. So if you're applying urea,
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it's needed for the enzyme that breaks that down called urease.
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Near impossible to be deficient in nickel never add nickel fertilizers high
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risk of toxicity to you as the user and to the plant so,
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nickel is a carcinogen so just like copper it's a heavy metal toxic nickel,
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is a carcinogen don't supply it a lot of regenerative,
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gurus a suggestion you apply it don't do that,
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those are the micronutrients so there were six macronutrients and there are nine micronutrients,
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go on to the non-mineral nutrients that plants need but they don't get it from
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minerals they don't get it from the soil that is carbon where do plants get carbon from,
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carbon dioxide attained from the air the only other place they're going to get
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it is from sugars so you might apply molasses or they might be a parasitic plant
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like mistletoe they might get it from another plant but most of the time they're
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getting it from photosynthesis they're getting it from co2.
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Hydrogen, obviously not on mineral elements, not on any fertilizer labels,
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that's obtained from water.
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Plants use the sunlight, the energy from sunlight, split the water molecule
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apart and obtain the hydrogen from there.
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And plants obviously need oxygen to respire and they get that from CO2 and from
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when they split the water molecule apart.
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So they split those two molecules apart special enzymes and photosynthesis and create,
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sugars and oxygen and they can use that to fulfill their processes and metabolism
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so that is how life works on earth,
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and then we have some non-essential elements elements that you could grow a
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crop without you could grow grass without you could grow a plant in a sterile
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situation without it But if you
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add these elements, then you get a yield bump, you get a benefit, okay?
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So they're non-essential elements, okay?
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First one is silicon, obviously. Not essential for the plant's survival,
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but major benefit to stress tolerance, physical strength, and especially in
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grasses and bamboos and things like this.
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So if you add silicon, it makes the cell wall stronger.
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And so that obviously prevents lodging or minimizes lodging.
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Helps the plant stand up taller get more photosynthesis more capture more light
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grow taller because it's just like liquid glass silicon fertilizers,
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whilst the silicon do it can bind heavy metals so prevent damage from things
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like cadmium for example is a it's a toxic element cobalt.
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And so silicon's great for that,
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silicon also because it increases the strength of the grass makes balls fly
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a lot faster along pitches and things like this and you're playing cricket or
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football you want to speed up your.
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Pitch, apply silicon. If you want it to increase its wear and tear,
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apply silicon. So a fantastic element to apply.
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You can either use sea silicon or organic silicon fertilizer or potassium silicate.
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We supply a very, very high concentration potassium silicate at a very,
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very reasonable price into all sectors.
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We do not increase the price for sports turf, which is unusual.
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A lot of companies will have a base price for arable crops and then whack it
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up because they We know that sports turf and lawn care people can pay a bit
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more, dilute it down and things like this. We don't do that.
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The other non-essential element is selenium.
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This is only required for grazing animal health, but not the actual plant health.
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So you might apply it if you're in a region where humans are suffering from
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selenium deficiency or the sheep and the cows are getting symptoms and developmental
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issues due to selenium deficiency.
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I would not add it in a fertilizer myself because the risk of toxicity is very
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high and i'm not an expert in animal nutrition so i still will still stay well clear of selenium,
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leave that to like feed additives for animals things like that it's probably
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a better way of getting selenium into them you can get selenium enriched yeast
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now which you can add to which is bioavailable to the animals,
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okay so they're the non-essential elements just two of those and then we've
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got three elements as examples of some reports and minor benefits titanium vanadium and cobalt,
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now titanium and vanadium they have been reports you'll find studies of saying
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that they promote growth normally,
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they promote growth when there's a deficiency in iron so they're very very nutrient deficient soils,
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they add titanium and it sort of replaces the iron in the enzymes so it's a
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substitute not a good substitute but it does
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allow the plant to grow a little bit better so that's example cobalts there
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are some reports of increased growth of cobalt but it's such a toxic element it's a.
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Toxic carcinogen heavy metal residual,
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it's illegal to apply it and not record where it went so it's by definition
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it's illegal to use cobalt fertilizers but there are some regenerative gurus
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advising the use of it obviously they don't get onto the farm and apply it themselves
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because they're too clever to actually,
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have the balls to actually apply a.
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There are lots of other chemicals where you'll find that there might be a report
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of it promoting growth, but there are three examples. Cobalt, vanadium, titanium.
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I would stay well clear of any fertilizer based on titanium.
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It's basically just a substitute for iron.
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If you want, it's going to be more expensive than iron and it's not going to
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work as well. So I'd avoid that.
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Next up is some examples of some elements particularly toxic to plants,
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which you might not think are.
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The first one is aluminium. We don't think of as aluminium as this toxic element,
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a bit like copper because in its metal state it's non-toxic you can think of
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copper pipes aluminium cans non-toxic but actually aluminium is very toxic to plant roots it's,
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a bit like arsenic to plant roots so you get aluminium the roots die off at the tips so in,
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very acidic soils aluminium can be released other ones chromium we talked about
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before silicon helps absorb chromium it's a toxic element to plants and cadmium
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as well they're chromium cadmium crcd.
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You probably don't going to come across these unless you're growing on very
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polluted soils i used to play golf at witness golf club up next to the mersey and and,
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that's now shut down because there was so much pollution coming out of the ground
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on that golf course it was on an old industrial,
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tip waste dump and the streams were white with
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sort of chemical chemicals coming out witnesses you know chemistry chemical
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industry heartland and so yeah it was pretty scary that golf course you didn't
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want to spend too much time always wash your hands,
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and so now it's been closed down and so that that sort of golf course might
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have had chromium and cadmium toxicity but anywhere else you're not going to
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get that at a lock lomond golf course or you know glen eagles places like that.
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If you've got cadmium and chromium issues and you're on arable crops,
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then you probably want to stop growing those and move to non-food crops,
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a bit like Corby around iron refineries and things like this.
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And then we've got some examples of elements that are neither beneficial nor
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toxic. They don't interact in any way, unless you absolutely dumped loads on
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the plants and killed it physically or suffocated them.
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So gold, for example. Plants can absorb gold, there's old gold in fairly high
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amounts some plants hyper accumulate it even and then you can extract the gold
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from them but it doesn't affect the plants in any way it just sort of passively
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absorbs them through the roots,
26:53
so this gold a helium obviously there's helium in the air not a vast amount of it and,
27:00
it's it's a inert noble gas and so it it doesn't have any interaction with the plants unless you.
27:07
Put it in the plants in pure helium and excluded all the oxygen the carbon dioxide
27:11
which you could do for a laugh but you know why bother and fluorine as well
27:15
fluorine is i think it's toxic to cut flowers,
27:19
because if you put if you could put if the roots normally exclude it so it doesn't
27:23
have any effect on the plant it's too big an element for that to be absorbed
27:27
by the plant so um yeah unless you're in the floristry industry it's really not going to be,
27:33
an issue for you so there are example of,
27:36
those lastly there are nine elements they're all on the periodic table of plant health, we do not have,
27:43
a mass amount so it's a fraction of the elements on the actual periodic table
27:48
of the elements 118 versus probably about 25 30 there that i've gone through
27:54
in a quick deep dive so you get an a4,
27:57
poster and then on the back of that you get the timings for all our products,
28:02
if you're in lawn care sports turf probably could do one for if you're in arable
28:08
crops and you're looking for timings of products and a full,
28:11
program breakdown of what i suggest to use we have our,
28:15
cereals biological program which i can include just email me to let me know
28:19
russell at utreema.co.uk but obviously as i've told you at the start of this
28:23
podcast nobody bothers to.
28:27
To type in the the link to the website when they hear it on a podcast so if
28:33
you want to remember utreema just remember,
28:36
it is latin for wasabi so if you ever struggle to think what was the name of
28:41
that company that podcast i listened to just say just type into google wasabi
28:47
and you'll find the scientific name is utrema chiponica,
28:51
and what does the latin what does the latin name mean it means true opening,
28:56
i have no idea what true opening means in relation to wasabi it's just a nice
29:01
plant i like to grow it and,
29:03
yeah i think it sounded like a funky name for a company when i started my company,
29:07
so yeah we are manufacturers of advanced fertilizers biostimulants and biopesticides,
29:12
let's think if i've got anything else to say probably not,
29:14
oh yeah we've got some swag if you've got some free stuff if you place an order
29:18
this month uh we can include a free christmas tree.
29:24
We've got 100 Christmas trees. My colleague Matthew hates this time of year
29:28
because I decide to sell Christmas trees in October, give them away.
29:31
We've got Fraser furs this year. Last year we did Nordman furs,
29:34
which you might know is the species that's used for Christmas trees.
29:37
This year, changed it up, used Fraser furs because they're a smaller,
29:41
more compact plant, better for small gardens.
29:44
But if you don't want a Christmas tree, you think that's sad,
29:46
we have got copies of turf trumps or hydroponics trumps, hydroponic headaches.
29:53
They're a card game with every single problem that we can think of in that sector
29:57
so everything every single problem to do with turf growing and,
30:01
ranks them and you can play the game or you can look on the back and you can
30:05
see how to solve that problem and this has been really popular with lawn care,
30:11
professionals because they can take the car show it to a customer,
30:14
really easy for the customer to understand the severity of the problem how common
30:17
it is and the solution that that lawn care professional,
30:20
is proposing on the back and it's an independent it's a third party saying that
30:24
so they can say it's not just the guy you know it's not just the barber telling
30:27
me i need a haircut somebody else is saying that as well.
30:30
What other free swag have we got we've got beanie hats if you want a utrema
30:35
beanie hat we've got 60 of them going spare and we give them out with every
30:40
ibc order so if you order a thousand liters,
30:43
you get a free beanie hat that sounds quite miserly doesn't it oh he's only
30:48
giving away a cheap and nasty beanie hat with a thousand liters but that is
30:51
far more than any other of our competitors to
30:54
competitors provide with their orders and yeah if you think of any other swag that you would like,
31:01
that can have utreema branded than i'm more than happy to.
31:04
We were for doing jumpers in the past i think we've got one other swag item that i've not listed,
31:09
oh yeah we've got keep off the grass signs so we've got a5 a5 and a4 keep off
31:14
the grass signs that say, keep off the grass, you treat novel biostimulants
31:19
and fertilizers being used.
31:21
And then we've also got the giant A1 periodic table of either plant health or
31:30
turf health, whichever one you want.
31:32
And you can put that up in your office, you can put it up in your warehouse,
31:35
your shed, or in the back of your van, or at home in your study, if you really wanted to.
31:42
And that'll come in as lovely printed. They cost a lot of money to get printed.
31:45
They're probably our most expensive piece of swag, our A1 periodic table of turf earth.
31:51
Might even be a zero i'm not sure oh golf balls as well golf balls we've got
31:55
utrema golf balls that say got waterlogged grass the solution at utrema.co.uk,
32:00
so yeah that is the extent of our current swag situation just let me know,
32:05
what you want and i'll include it with your order or you can just search free
32:09
christmas tree utrema on google and it'll come up or keep off the grass sign
32:13
utrema and it'll come up if you don't want to speak to anyone i know a lot of
32:16
people don't want to speak to people,
32:19
don't want to email because they don't want the hard sell we never give a hard
32:22
sell anyway but they just don't want the interaction they just want the free
32:25
gift so that's why we have it on our website,
32:28
and that is also one of the reasons why we sell,
32:31
one liter products and 100 mil free samples on our website we give if you want
32:35
a free sample just go on our.
32:39
A lot of people would rather just pay the postage for a sample than request
32:44
a sample because you don't know if that email has been read.
32:47
You don't know. You have someone phone you up immediately and say,
32:50
oh, I see you're interested in potassium phosphite.
32:54
Can I have all your details, please? And let me know the farm you're on and
32:58
what's your daily budget and what you grow and all this and ask you loads of
33:02
questions. Whereas you can just go onto a website, buy a sample.
33:06
You know it's coming in the next two days. you don't have to think oh have they
33:09
sent it yet you don't have to chase them and so that's where we get a big win
33:13
over our competitors in that we just provide samples on our website and,
33:19
freebies on our samples and or just people can just buy a one liter a five liter
33:23
a ten liter and then buy an IBC later on if it was worked and it will work so
33:28
we're happy with that the one disadvantage we don't have is that we don't have.
33:32
An army of reps on the road ready to pester you.
33:36
So you won't find Utrema going into grow shops, garden centers,
33:40
golf courses, farms, and pestering you and making you sign up to programs and things like this.
33:47
And often funny, we turn up to golf courses to play golf and things like that.
33:51
And we see a whole army of reps surrounding the greenkeeping team.
33:55
And often you get to farms or hydroponic shops, especially you'll,
34:00
you go into a hydroponic shop and there's probably more reps than there are
34:03
customers on any day of the week it is crazy.
34:06
So yeah you won't find us doing that because we're not desperate to sell one
34:10
product into one sector we have innovative products,
34:14
and if you want to buy them you can buy them and if you don't want to that's
34:16
more than helpful and if you want advice on where to buy alternatives that you
34:20
don't find on our website let me know if you're after things like guano which
34:24
we don't sell or a powdered product we never do amino acids i think are our only powdered product,
34:29
then let me know and i'm more happy to give you some advice on where to purchase
34:34
from other things like that or what to look for all right that's enough waffle
34:38
i think i've got enough minutes there to get us really up the podcast charts so fingers crossed,
34:45
if you can leave us a rating or review that would help but yeah i'm not going
34:50
to hold my breath because i don't get many
34:51
all right thank you very much for listening if you've got any ideas of what
34:54
you would like for a subject for a podcast then let me know then i'll do it
34:58
straight away because i've injured my back and i can't play any goal for the
35:01
moment so yeah i'm sat here,
35:04
i'm about to go off on my tractor and slit some and tickle the grass on the,
35:10
sports field that i'm a volunteer groundkeeper for all right thank you very
35:14
much for listening until next time goodbye.