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Wheatgrass Wonders · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
• 0:05
  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and today's subject is wheatgrass.
• 0:10
  Not only is this soilless, it can also be fertiliser-less, nutrient-less,
• 0:14
  because when you grow wheatgrass, you don't use any nutrients normally. So what is wheatgrass?
• 0:19
  Well, we'll go into all the details about wheatgrass, how you grow it,
• 0:22
  what to do, and I'll also give you a top tip at the end, which is my top tip,
• 0:26
  which I think can make wheatgrass growing profitable when otherwise it might not be.
• 0:30
  I've got a massive way to cut costs when
• 0:33
  it comes to wheatgrass production so wheatgrass is
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  basically wheat the same stuff that goes into farmer's field
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  but you grow it in small trays indoors and you
• 0:42
  produce a juice at the end well normally you produce a juice and you
• 0:46
  can mix that with other juices to make it more palatable because some
• 0:49
  people don't find it very nice to drink or you
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  can just feed the tray of wheatgrass to your cats because
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  it's a food that's given to cats as a
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  sort medicine type thing or things like this so
• 1:00
  you get a load of wheatgrass seeds and
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  basically you soak them like you would any other seed but
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  you just need a lot of wheatgrass seeds so i'm not
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  sure how many grams you need per seed tray but you need to be two
• 1:12
  or three seeds deep on a seed tray so that's
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  you can measure those out before you in the seed tray before you soak them put
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  them in a mason jar soak them for about eight hours and then drain the mason
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  jar leave it draining and then refresh that every 12 hours or every day for
• 1:29
  a few days and then drain them again, just so there's nice fresh water in there.
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  And then they'll have sprouted when the little root.
• 1:38
  Radical that's the word didn't have to google it that time
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  emerges then it's time to sow them in the
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  seed tray so a small amount of grow media whether it's
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  an inert grow media or corned grown compost very very
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  small amounts required because it's not required for nutrition just for
• 1:53
  holding the wheat roots and you
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  sow them say two three deep so really thick
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  water them again make sure there's a nice water reservoir below
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  the grow media and then put a propagation tray on
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  them so a clear transparent propagation lid and
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  then put them somewhere nice and fairly
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  warm and but also indirect light so that
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  could be a propagation light either a fluorescent or a
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  low powered propagation led or indirect
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  sunlight so in a kitchen windowsill
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  or something like that don't put them in direct sunlight in a
• 2:27
  greenhouse or under a high pressure sodium lamp or a really
• 2:30
  high powered led because you'll
• 2:33
  you'll damage the foliage and also you won't get that sweet
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  tender growth you don't need a lot of photosynthesis because these
• 2:39
  are not requiring nutrients they're just developing to
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  the point where you're going to harvest them so when they
• 2:45
  come to what's called the jointing stage is when you harvest them it's normally
• 2:48
  about seven to eight weeks when the joint on
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  the leaves that forms on a on a on a wheat plant rises
• 2:54
  above the surface of the growing media and before.
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  That occurs you're refreshing with fresh water every
• 3:01
  day or so and you're after a few days once the green shoots have emerged you
• 3:06
  remove that propagation lid and just allow them to grow in the ambient conditions
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  obviously they're growing so fast pests and diseases are not normally an issue
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  if you do get pests and diseases you just dump them because you don't want to
• 3:17
  be treating these plants with pesticides or any other sorts.
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  Compounds you don't add any fertilizer as i said that's only
• 3:24
  going to make them more astringent increase the chlorophyll levels
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  things like this you can grow them completely in the dark and produce like
• 3:30
  an etiolated one that's very popular with like maize black popcorn
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  popcorn corn golden popcorn or
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  whatever it's called but for wheatgrass they're normally grown
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  green and you harvest them you harvest them very
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  very close to the growing media so you get as much as
• 3:45
  possible without contaminating the grain media in the
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  juice and that's an advantage for using hydroponics and
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  soilless cultivation because if you're using propagation compost
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  and mix or soil anything loan based you've
• 3:57
  got potential there for contamination with the
• 4:01
  soil and any microbes that are growing in it and
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  that's not cool because you're not going to be washing the wheatgrass before you
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  make a juice normally it's normally like a herb liquid
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  herbal supplement it's not cooked another reason why
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  you need to be careful about contamination with microbes so this
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  health food it's as i always say it would
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  be a good one for grow shops to grow because you could offer wheatgrass shots
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  to your customers it's a good one for anyone working hydroponics to have growing
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  around so you can offer it to customers as they come in or colleagues or suppliers
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  it's and it's an interesting taste it's the talking point and it's very quick to grow.
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  You just need the main cost is the seeds and your
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  time and the planning and things like this so that's
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  something important to consider when you cut wheat it
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  will come again it will grow again because the meristem is like
• 4:51
  like lawn turf it's at the bottom of the plant and so
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  it will it will produce more leaves once it's been
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  cut however with wheatgrass you don't it's
• 5:00
  not cut and come again like a lettuce plant where you
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  once it's cut then its usability is gone because
• 5:06
  all the energy for that wheat was in the seed.
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  And that's what you're after you don't want it to have to go again and
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  make more you just throw the plant away recycle the
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  compost if you're using compost or cocoa and then
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  put fresh growing media in fresh seed and go again and
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  then this is really high throughput hydroponics really
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  easy really probably the easiest type of hydroponics the
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  cleanest form of hydroponics you can use really good way to get
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  people and kids involved in growing
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  plants and now is time
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  for my number one top tip so when you buy
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  wheatgrass seed you might go and buy say five grams
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  from a dedicated seed merchant pay
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  through the through the roof for it you might go into ebay
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  and buy some dedicated wheatgrass seeds and you
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  there'll be microgreen suppliers who are supplying wheatgrass
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  seed for you from specialist microgreen seed producers and a lot of the people
• 6:01
  who do podcasts on microgreens and youtube sell through these but the best way
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  to get your seed is to speak to a local farmer if you're in an area that grows
• 6:09
  wheat and ask them for some of their farm saved seed.
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  And you will get that for a fraction of the cost that you can buy online.
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  So worth getting out there, getting on the phone, speaking to some wheat farmers.
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  They'll love to get involved with and sell you some seed, some of their farm
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  seed seed, if it's the right time of year. You can buy a big bulk bag.
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  As long as you store it well, that will last you a year, and you'll certainly
• 6:37
  store for a year perfectly well.
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  The one caveat is don't buy the seed the farmers
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  buy for their feed because it could be what's called dressed and
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  dressed or coated means that it contains a pesticide or
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  other synthetic or other ingredients on
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  it fertilizers and and you don't want
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  that because the pesticide will still
• 6:58
  be active in the wheatgrass plant when it
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  germinates in that stage so definitely don't buy wheat
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  don't cut corners and buy wheat death that is suitable for
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  growing by farmers what you want is the farm
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  saved wheat that hasn't been dressed hasn't been coated that
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  the farmer's grown either to save for himself or
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  to sell for bread and biscuits and
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  things like that that will save you
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  massive costs because you think about it three seeds deep in a seed tray the
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  vast quant that's the way the cost come from wheat in in wheatgrass production
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  is all those seeds so you can vastly reduce that by by just speaking to a farmer
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  and getting yourself down to the farm picking up a big bag they'll be more than happy they'll love,
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  talking to you about growing wheat and how you do it and you obviously you don't need to be.
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  Spend a lot of money on your on your uh grow
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  facilities just a low value light you know
• 7:53
  and nice and cool you can use obviously you're
• 7:56
  going to use a juicing machine my advice when it comes to juicing
• 7:58
  if you use juicing is to invest in a good quality juicer so don't buy the cheapest
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  one you want like a screw press juicer i've got one of these it's a world of
• 8:10
  difference between the ones the ones that rotate and spin are rubbish and rubbish
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  for doing things like this you want a.
• 8:19
  Produce like a pulp at the end and and the
• 8:22
  juice so have you grown wheatgrass do
• 8:25
  you think i've missed anything in particular what
• 8:29
  do you think of my top tip of using farm
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  saved seed to grow it i'm not sure if you can do barley
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  juice barley grass seed juice i'm
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  not sure but you can definitely do spelt that's one
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  of the different varieties that you can use you could potentially
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  use it it's fodder for animal feed but it's a real high value
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  use is for making juice in juice bars set up your own juice bar and you could
• 8:52
  charge an extortionate amount certainly more than you could for say an americano
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  or a latte frappuccino could you mix the two together could you get coffee and
• 9:01
  wheatgrass is that the new labubu slash dubai chocolate have i just come up with the next.
• 9:08
  Viral food trend wheatgrass coffee let me
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  know if you've tried it i might go and make myself a wheatgrass
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  coffee and see what it is and feedback to you i might
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  drink a cup full on an episode soon
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  so let me know that should be interesting be like one of those challenged instagram
• 9:24
  accounts you don't think i can eat a carolina reaper
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  do you not know who i am them sorts of ones that'll be a good episode hopefully
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  i won't vomit on it that episode anyway that's enough of disgusting chat if
• 9:36
  you're into wheatgrass and you yeah you know somebody who is share this episode
• 9:40
  with them and if you've had this episode shared with you because you're an expert in wheatgrass,
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  then you owe the person who shared it with you a beer or a wheatgrass juice
• 9:49
  or something nice to drink, a cold drink, if you found it useful.
• 9:53
  If not, my apologies for making you listen to all this drivel for five or ten minutes.
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  Thank you very much for listening to Hydroponics Daily. Until tomorrow, goodbye.