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Hydroponics on Display: 8 Botanical Gardens to Visit · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Ltd.
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  We are a British company that manufactures novel biostimulants,
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  interesting fertilisers and organic biopesticides, and we sell them all around
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  the world under different names and things like that.
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  So we're based in the British Isles, into the United Kingdom, England,
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  and today's topic is unfortunately not related to the UK because today we're
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  talking about botanical gardens where you can go and visit a hydroponic display
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  and have a look at how it's done and learn more about hydroponics.
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  Now, you would think a lot of botanical gardens have these displays because
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  they look flipping brilliant and they, so they would attract visitors.
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  But no, not many botanical gardens have got them.
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  Cambridge University Botanical Gardens used to have one, but it was only on
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  display for a year it was part of their plant to power solar hub an architectural installation,
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  and but they don't have it anymore the nearest you can get to that is you can
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  see their bioreactors for microalgae if you peer through the fence at the Sainsbury's
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  Laboratory for Plant Science.
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  And Peyton Zoo used to have a really interesting
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  vertical verticrop system that
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  used the plants used to whiz around the greenhouse very slowly
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  and move to where the irrigation was
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  rather than the irrigation moved to them but that is no longer
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  in place I think it's been dismantled so we don't
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  have any on display in the UK as far as I am
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  as aware as far as I am aware now you may be able to see a
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  vertical wall somewhere and that's hydroponic but
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  not in a botanical gardens as such so if you
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  know different let me know so where else can you see hydroponic
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  displays well the phipps conservatory and botanical
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  gardens in pittsburgh in the usa they've got
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  an organic rooftop edible garden which sounds good i always think edible garden
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  sounds like something willy wonka would make but no it just means edible plants
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  so you can go and visit there yeah and the food production i think is used in
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  the in the visitor center as well so the phipps conservatory I've never heard
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  of that one, but Pittsburgh.
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  If you go into Pittsburgh, then that's the one to go and visit.
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  Further down in the south, Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens.
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  In the Children's Adventure Garden, they have an incredible edible gallery.
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  It includes hydroponic towers for hands-on STEM learning, so the kids can actually
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  go and touch it and play with it under supervision, I would assume.
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  So they've got one down there. Now, outside of the US, in Palestine,
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  in Bethlehem, they have a dedicated aquaponic and hydroponic system in their
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  botanical gardens so that sounds good so now that the fighting has died down
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  in Palestine perhaps we could all go over and visit their hydroponic system in Bethlehem,
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  I know a few people who've been to Bethlehem for a visit.
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  My American customer, that's the only time he's ever been on a bus in his entire
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  lifetime is when he went to Bethlehem, which I think is, from a British perspective,
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  European perspective, is absolutely crazy that you would never go on a bus, but there you go.
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  If you are in Malaysia, then the Botanical Gardens at the University of Kebangsan,
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  they've got a hydroponic system described as a learning hub that features gardening
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  spaces, hydroponic systems, composting, and rainwater harvesting.
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  So if you're in malaysia get over to that if you're
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  in dresden in germany the beautiful city of dresden
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  then shout out to my friend silke lesman and
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  she is a strawberry breeder in dresden and they've
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  got a hydroponic system at the dresden botanical gardens so
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  if you're visiting that beautiful city go over to the
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  botanical gardens they've got a vertical farming tower and
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  it's part of a pilot pilot project probably eu
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  funded i would imagine so yeah check out
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  that one in dresden if you're in back to the us
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  quickly north carolina wilson botanical gardens as part of their stem garden
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  so very much the theme here is very much they're integrated into learning areas
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  for children or even undergraduate which i would imagine that's an aquaponic system i think so.
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  That's a really good one so with the wilson botanical garden in north carolina
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  again that'd be interesting i don't know where that one is in in north carolina
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  but there you go my friend emma tregida she's a new zealander she lives in north
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  carolina perhaps she's been there maybe i'll ask her she is a plant scientist.
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  Now back to the middle east the university of baghdad at
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  the botanical gardens at the sent the college for education for
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  pure science has got a greenhouse
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  at the front of the botanical garden that contains a hydropodic farm
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  used by graduate students described as a living environmental museum so check
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  that one out if you ever go to baghdad and and finally if you are in russia
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  and you're struggling to get anywhere else around the world then you could always
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  go to the Isu Botanical Gardens in Irkst State University.
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  In Irkstsk. I have no idea where that is. Let me Google that and see where in Russia is Irkstsk.
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  I'm probably pronouncing it terribly. I really do apologize.
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  I don't mean to, but it's not the worst thing someone's done with Russia, is it? So here we go.
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  Blimey. It is just north of Mongolia. It's in Siberia, basically.
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  It's It's in the middle of nowhere.
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  Flipping heck. Yeah, I bet it's cold there in the winter. I bet the hydroponic systems.
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  Oh, it's right next to Lake Baikal, which is... Ah, Lake Baikal,
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  that is famous, isn't it? Well, what's that famous for?
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  I'm literally just Googling this. It's a rift lake, the deepest lake in the world.
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  There you go, Lake Baikal. Doesn't it hold more fresh water than all the other
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  lakes in the world or something like that? Some sort of bizarre...
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  Tays 90% of the unfrozen fresh water on the planet. There you go.
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  So hydroponics saves water, and that's one of the biggest environmental factors
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  for promotion of hydroponics. It's really good at saving water.
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  But in Urquhs, they've probably got loads of fresh water.
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  They have an ebon flood system that grows medicinal and aromatic plants,
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  things like lemon balm, and they
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  do theme tours and workshops for the hydroponic system. So there you go.
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  Interesting. i reread a lot of notes from a recent hydroponics
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  conference and the ability of hydroponics to save
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  water is the big big thing that they really
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  like to promote because it's not energy efficient compared to field
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  grown they have to take the winds where they can and the lack of
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  pesticides and the saving of water is the key areas where
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  they focus on so yeah there's eight botanical gardens
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  you can go and visit but if you know of botanical gardens that does have a hydroponic
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  display that i've not featured then let me know and i will feature it on a upcoming
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  episode because and I would like to go and visit pretty much all of those really
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  as long as I am allowed in and the political and it's not and it's safe so I'd
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  love to go to Russia I'd love to go to Palestine.
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  And Malaysia and places like that so yeah hit me up with an invite if you weren't
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  there okay that's been hydroponics daily for today if you found this interesting
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  if you'd like to go to one of those,
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  hydroponics setups and see them in action perhaps you haven't got one
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  of your own then yeah make sure
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  make sure you follow this podcast so you get more hydroponics information and
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  more education and if you'd like to check out
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  utreema.co.uk then we have fantastic hydroponic products to help your plants
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  grow amazingly well if you can't spell utreema it's latin for wasabi so just
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  google wasabi and you'll find utreema as the genus name that's been hydroponics
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  daily for today thank you very much for listening and until next time goodbye.