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The Dirty Secrets of Organic Fertilizers in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello, and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr. Russell Sharp,
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  the inventor of gold leaf fertilizer, or as it's called in the UK, liquid gold.
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  Now, gold leaf is not a organic fertilizer.
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  That means that it doesn't comply with the organic regulations.
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  It doesn't mean it's not a great fertilizer.
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  It doesn't mean that it's not good for soil biology.
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  It just means that it doesn't conform to the specific organic regulations laid
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  down by certain organic regulatory bodies like OMRI in the US and North America,
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  Canada, and the EU in Europe.
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  So it's still biorational, it still feeds beneficial bacteria,
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  doesn't do any harm like a lot of hydroponic fertilizers can do,
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  especially the ones that are really acidic or really alkaline.
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  So I thought I'd talk about fertilizers that
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  people who insist on being organic could use
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  and where if you're buying an organic fertilizer where
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  the raw materials come from so strictly speaking
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  hydroponics cannot be organic because hydroponics involves soilless cultivation
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  there's no soil involved and to be organic you have to be growing in soil and
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  it has to be in the ground so you can't be growing in containers and you can't
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  be growing without soil So that makes two reasons why hydroponics can't be used.
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  Now, there is a movement to try and get organic hydroponics,
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  a subsection, to be known as organic hydroponics.
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  However, I don't believe that's successful yet, and I doubt it would be successful
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  in the Europe, the way things work with the European Union.
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  But let's think about the sort of fertilizers that can be used that are classed
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  as organic fertilizers, and still, you can still use organic fertilizers in hydroponics.
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  And these are a lot certainly many of
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  them are good good for the environment and are sustainably sourced
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  some of them are not though and we'll talk about them so the
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  main one that's used to deliver npk is
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  fish emulsion so that's liquid derived
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  from fermentation or enzymatic digestion of
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  fish waste so the guts the fish heads
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  the skeletons it's digested now
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  i've said they're fermented or enzymatically digested however you
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  are allowed to use phosphoric acid or acids in
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  many countries and phosphoric
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  acid is a nasty chemical and it's
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  not a organic chemical it's a
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  synthetic chemical um but it is allowed to
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  be used in and that's one of the big issues in organic
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  farming or in organic fertilizers it's a
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  get out of jail free card really for
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  a lot of fertilizer the manufacturers so some fish emulsions they can be very
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  high in phosphorus and you think oh yeah it's because the fish is you know high
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  in phosphorus and it's not it's just that they contain so much phosphoric acid
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  to digest them that that's where the that's where the pea comes from and so
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  be wary of that they should be high in nitrogen because you think about all that.
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  Fish meat and the skeleton that will have high
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  nitrogen level so there'll be a natural level of nitrogen people's claimed
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  that also seaweed extract is high in nitrogen but
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  it's not you will get a lot of phosphorus no you
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  get a lot of potassium in seaweed extracts again that's not from the actual
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  seaweed it's from the potassium hydroxide that's used to make the cheap and
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  cheerful seaweed extracts they're very high in these very caustic potassium
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  hydroxide and high temperatures and high pressure to extract it.
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  Seaweed extract is more of a biostimulant rather than a fertiliser.
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  However, because it's extracted with that potassium hydroxide,
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  you will see a lot of products that contain seaweed extracts because of that,
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  because it gives you the K.
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  So the fish will give you the N. It'll also give you the P from the phosphoric acid.
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  Seaweed will give you the K again, but not from the seaweed itself.
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  So you can see these workarounds slowly build up in organic farming.
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  Alfalfa meal extract, we think of legumes and soya as being high in nitrogen,
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  and they will be high in nitrogen, so that's a natural source of nitrogen.
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  They'll also contain things like tricontinol, but only small amounts.
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  So soya bean hydrolysates, soya bean protein that's been broken down into amino
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  acids, that'll be a good source of nitrogen.
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  Feather meal extract, so just like the fish waste,
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  feather waste is a big issue, so they're
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  high and slow release nitrogens that might need breaking down
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  to form a liquid fertilizer and blood meal
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  extract high in nitrogen again used as a fertilizer and a biostimulant and amino
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  acid biostimulant however blood meal extract feather meal extract fish emulsion
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  these are all animal waste byproducts of meat production so a lot of people organic might also be.
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  Vegetarian or vegan?
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  And I don't know because I'm not vegetarian or vegan, but would you have issues
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  using fish emulsion, feather meal, blood meal?
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  And you might say, no, because these are byproducts, these are waste,
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  I'm not eating them, I'm not consuming them directly.
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  Or you might think, well, actually, I am, by using them,
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  I am increasing the profitability of the meat supply chain, because I am providing
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  profit for the waste product, therefore increasing the profitability of the whole industry,
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  and therefore promoting it and increasing its growth and things like that.
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  So if you're organic and you're also a vegetarian or a vegan,
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  you might struggle to get fertilizers that fit within your moral compass and
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  things like that. So that's something to consider.
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  Other things for phosphorus, rock phosphate is allowed. So quarried rock phosphate.
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  Rock phosphate is the starting material for a lot of phosphate production.
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  So in Morocco, Russia, places like that, and Canada, South America,
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  you get rock phosphate and then you add other acids and things like that to
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  make triple super phosphate, super phosphate.
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  And then like things like ammonium phosphate is, that's ammonium mixed with
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  phosphoric acid, I think.
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  So yeah, you get less organic, but rock phosphate, the stuff that's just ground up.
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  Made into small particles maybe maybe
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  put into a suspension or an emulsion that is
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  organic that's allowed in organic farming you do
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  also see something called rock dust being
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  sold certainly in the uk there's a few companies selling
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  rock dust however these are just ground up i
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  think it's granite and these are
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  i don't like these products because they say
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  they contain like you contains 80 essential elements well
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  plants only need 14 elements at most so and
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  also there aren't that many stable elements so which are the which
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  these elements are radioactive in your rock dust your
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  organic rock dust product the other reason i don't like them
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  is that in when you when you've
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  made soil you're you're trying to add air
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  you're trying to add water you're trying to add biology you're trying
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  to add organic matter if you add rock dust you're just going backwards
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  you know so i'm not a big
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  fan of rock dust rock phosphate if it was an organic farmer i
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  might consider using and then for k
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  the other of the big macronutrients wood
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  ash is a good source of potassium and certain plants are very high in in in
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  potassium certainly some marine plants banana peel again seaweed extract because
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  of that potassium hydroxide and molasses molasses is a good source of potassium
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  however you just need to be careful with the osmotic stress of molasses don't overdo it.
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  And certainly a product that a lot of people use during
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  finishing and to as a lot of sort of like resin producer when it comes to the
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  secondary macronutrients a dolomitic lime is a really good source of calcium
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  and magnesium and then gypsum is a good source of calcium and sulfur again these
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  These are both quarried products.
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  You can have like a lot of seafood waste, like crustacean meal,
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  that can be high in calcium and chitin.
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  However, very, very slow release.
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  I've got crab shells and clam shells in my garden that I've put in my compost
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  heap probably about 10 years ago and they're still there and they don't look
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  like they've broken down anything. They don't biodegrade very fast.
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  So be very wary when people say things like, you know, eggshells are a good source of calcium.
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  Epsom salts, magnesium sulfate, that's a really good source.
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  It's technically a mineral, but it's allowed in some organic standards. So
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  just check that okay so they're really a lot of
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  them apart from crustacean waste they're all mined products
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  and crustacean waste would be the one that you would might have issue with if
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  you're a vegetarian or you're a vegan and then micronutrients that's where an
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  issue can come in again seaweed extracts are probably a good source of micronutrients
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  especially things like boron and vitamin b12.
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  Vermicompost tea extracts compost teas and
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  humic and fulvic acids extracted from lianidite
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  or compost or peat and just check your local
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  regulations if you're using them whether they're allowed and then
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  what are the sources there's a lot of sort of
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  carbon and microbial food source products that
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  so things like molasses glucose syrups compost
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  extracts they won't be providing nutrients themselves but
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  they stimulate beneficial microbes things like mycorrhizae
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  trichoderma bacillus then they could help with extracting nutrients from what's
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  already there in the soil and that's a big thing in organics is getting out
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  what's already there not actually adding continually adding loads more nutrients
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  and building it that way and you'll find a lot of organic.
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  Ranges in the hydroponic area also have aloe vera extracts in their lineup,
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  willow bark extracts, and potentially neem products or neem cake extracts.
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  However, neem is a product that's only allowed in certain jurisdictions.
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  Some countries neem extracts are allowed and can be used wherever,
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  whenever, and then others it's not
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  allowed, and others it's regulated and registered. So just check on that.
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  So as I say, organic hydroponics, strictly speaking, is not allowed,
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  but there are a lot of organic products in hydroponics because people
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  want to use organic products in hydroponics so
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  they sort of break down into the extracts from
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  animals from plants or algae those that are
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  quarried and microbials sugar-based
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  products and things like this so together you can produce a good a good mix
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  of mpk micronutrients secondary nutrients and good biology getting that all
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  into a liquid is difficult so you might have to use a few powdered products
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  rather than relying on liquids like you would with standard hydroponics.
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  It can get a bit funky if you're adding them to a fertigation tank because the
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  microbes will start brewing.
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  You might start to get filamentous microbes, you might start to get precipitation, could get blockages.
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  These are all things you have to deal with if you're a hydroponic grower.
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  You probably want to grow in something like cocoa, because that's more forgiving
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  when you get things like these...
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  Bacterial growths. You don't want to use rock wool because it's not a sustainable
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  material, whereas cocoa is
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  more sustainable because it's from a waste product, a plant waste product.
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  It's not without its issues because you're importing it from,
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  say, Sri Lanka or Indonesia.
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  It's certainly better than peat because you're not digging up a biodiversity hotspot to extract it.
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  You're not releasing carbon dioxide in massive amounts.
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  You're not removing it from a carbon sink. so cocoa
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  is what i would use if i was an organic grower and i would use
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  these these organic products i would
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  use them with smaller amounts i would
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  go slowly i wouldn't rush into things i
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  would make sure my grows were small to begin with until i'd optimized it and
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  got a good system where the nutrients release slowly and a sort of a sustainable
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  process the good news is if you're not using any growth regulators you could
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  look at recycling your grow media between grows and so you'd You could do a big grow,
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  you could compost the grow media, and then when that's composted,
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  you could then use it again for your third grow and sort of cycle it like that.
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  Or you could wait and just do it grow after grow, continual system.
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  That's the way I would do it if I was an organic grower. I wouldn't use fresh grow media every time.
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  It would be against the organic principles of sustainability and things like
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  this. So if you're an organic grower, you do anything differently.
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  A lot of people will say they don't use fertilizer at all.
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  They just dig soil up from the ground and put them in. And for some plants,
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  that's really good and you'll get a good crop.
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  And you might even get an even better product because, you know,
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  the plants had to rework for it.
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  But a lot of people will want to supercharge their yield.
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  And so adding some fertilizer will be good to that. So, yeah.
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  Obviously it's hydroponics. You're not going to be digging soil up at the ground.
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  You're going to be, strictly speaking, you're going to be using an inert media. So probably cocoa.
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  Obviously, organic farmers, traditional organic farmers, would be using a lot
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  of manure, a lot of excrement in their fertilization system and from livestock.
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  Again, if you're a vegan or a vegetarian, you might think that's fine because
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  you're not killing animals to do that.
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  However, you also, as I say, you are increasing the profitability of the meat
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  supply chain by doing that.
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  That's something to consider. But when it comes to organic fertilizers,
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  you're not going to get many products that are made out of excrement,
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  out of manure, because the preservation of the product, getting it on a shelf,
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  the risk to the producer of selling you a product based on excrement would be very high.
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  I once dabbled at creating a product made out of pig's blood,
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  because one of my customers said, oh, if you make a product out of pig's blood,
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  then the Albanian hydroponic growers will love it.
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  So exporting it over to Albania.
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  I tried that, but the coagulation of the blood, we got it fresh from the abattoir
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  and it came straight out of the pig because I saw it come straight out of the pig.
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  Tried preserving it, tried preventing coagulation, looked at a lot of techniques
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  for preventing coagulation, but this blood just would not stay liquid.
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  It went solid almost instantaneously in most cases.
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  We do actually have a product now, an iron product in eutrema that looks just
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  like blood. It's a dark red and it's thick and sloppy, but it's completely inorganic.
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  It's not an organic product. It's a synthetic product.
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  It just happens to look like blood and delivers a lot of iron to the product.
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  So if you want a product that looks like blood and delivers iron,
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  just like blood does really, you know, hemoglobin is full of iron,
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  then speak to us about our ultimate iron product.
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  Okay. Thank you. Until tomorrow, thanks very much for listening to this macabre,
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  rather macabre episode of hydroponics daily and always share and follow if you
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  thought it was of any interest whatsoever thank you goodbye.