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Why Pumpkins Trap Forever Chemicals — and How Hydroponics Helps · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome 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 Limited.
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  And today I wanted to talk about squashes, pumpkins, gourds,
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  curcubits as they're known,
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  zucchinis in America or
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  courgettes in the uk and marrows
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  anything in this plant family there is
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  a significant issue when you grow them in
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  soils especially soil that has been cultivated for
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  horticultural use for many decades and that
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  is their predisposition to
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  absorb pollutants specifically a
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  certain types of pesticides and this
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  is an issue i was first brought to wear by
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  organic farmers and organic farmers that are traditioned
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  normally when you transition to organic farming the soil
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  has to be left for a number of years and in a
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  transition phase before the crops grown on it can be declared organic and this
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  has happened and people can grow organic crops of pumpkins things like this
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  but they get contaminated with pesticides that are in the soil that have been
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  there for many decades and have not biodegraded.
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  And there are a number of pesticides.
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  There are forever chemicals that are pesticides and there are other chemicals
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  that are in the soil and normally don't affect crops and are not absorbed. But they...
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  The curcubits, the zucchinis, the squashes, pumpkins, they do absorb them and
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  they accumulate them in their flesh.
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  And so which ones are these an issue for? It's dioxin-like PCBs,
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  organochloride pesticides, dioxins, furans, some really nasty chemicals that
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  most of them have been banned and are no longer registered.
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  However, they remain in the soil.
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  And a researcher in japan has found
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  out why and why this is and so he
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  knew hideyuki of kobe
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  university so the pollutants don't easily break
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  down and thus pose a health risk to people eating their fruits
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  interestingly other plans don't do this and so he became or i don't know it's
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  a hero she actually so they became interested in what happens in this group
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  and they found that there is a special type of protein that binds to the pollutants
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  and it then moves in the xylem and accumulates in the flesh.
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  Now these chemicals are hydrophobic so they wouldn't be absorbed in the water normally.
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  They require this protein to bind to them and make them water soluble and that's the big problem.
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  The team determined that the protein variant from highly accumulating plants
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  are exported in the sap whereas other variants are retained in the cells.
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  So certain types of protein they go into
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  the cells other times they're accumulating they move to the fruit
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  let's hope that this can be used to breed squashes
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  and pumpkins that don't do this and so you could have healthier pumpkins as
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  a result it's a hidden danger in these plants i don't know if it happens in
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  pumpkin seeds i would imagine pumpkin seeds might also contain it because they're
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  quite oily contain a lot of you know,
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  pumpkin seeds. Interestingly, I once went to Turkey to visit a customer for seaweed extract.
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  And he said, we're going to the city today, Russell. We're going to the city.
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  I said, all right, great.
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  We went along this motorway, went down to a small road, came to a village.
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  A big, massive guy came and we picked him up and he sat in the back.
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  I was like, okay. okay yeah the customer he then said do you like guns russell
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  and i said i've got an air rifle and he opened this central component and there
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  was a massive pistol in there and i was like okay,
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  we then went down a dusty road and i was like are we
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  still going to the city and he said yep we're
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  going to the city we're nearly there and like we're not going to the city are
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  we i'm gonna get shot and dumped in a ditch then
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  we get to this we get to this field okay we're we're here now get out yeah and
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  there's all these women in a field with tarpaulins big plastic sheeting down
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  and they're ripping apart pumpkins and putting the seeds on the tarpaulins and
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  then throwing the pumpkin flesh away and we just looked at people harvesting pumpkin seeds and.
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  That was the trip. We didn't go to the city. I think you got confused between
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  the English for city and countryside.
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  I was absolutely pooing my pants. Anyway, it was interesting to see how pumpkin seeds are produced.
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  I didn't realise that it's a completely different crop to pumpkins for pumpkin
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  pie and pumpkin flesh and pumpkins for Halloween.
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  They actually throw the flesh away when you grow pumpkin seeds.
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  So that was really interesting and a funny story as well.
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  But yeah, back to poisons in pumpkins.
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  It's thought that they could also screen plants for these special
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  types of proteins that can accumulate these hydrophobic pesticides
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  and use them for phytoremediation to
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  remove pollutants from the soil and actually clean up
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  contaminated land so it's something to consider and why am i talking about it
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  on hydroponics daily well it's a massive advantage for hydroponic crops if you
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  can grow squashes and pumpkins in a hydroponic system away from the soil then
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  you don't need to worry about the pesticide accumulation because there should
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  be no pesticides in your system.
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  So a big win for hydroponics, and you could use that as a scare story saying
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  contains no toxic forever chemical pesticides that are toxic,
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  you know, organochlorides and PCBs, dioxins, furans, nasty chemicals.
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  So a massive win for hydroponically grown crops, maybe growing in coir,
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  in a greenhouse, in a polytunnel, or indoors. And so yeah, that's an interesting.
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  One used to be thought that the squashes and the pumpkins absorbed it directly
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  from sitting on the soil surface.
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  And when they were resting on the soil surface, then that was what led to the
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  pesticide accumulation.
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  Certainly, an agronomist told me that back in 2016, which is absolute nonsense.
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  It's not true. they absorb it through the roots and the
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  special proteins attach to the hydrophobic pesticides
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  in the root exudates and in the roots and absorb
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  them and accumulate it in the flesh so have
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  a think about where your pumpkins and squashes and
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  courgettes zucchinis marrows are grown and
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  yeah have a look into it might be a hidden danger okay
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  that's been hydroponics daily for today if you found this interesting and entertaining
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  then please leave an apple podcast review if you're
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  not an apple don't bother because it's not doesn't help us share the
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  podcast with the wider horticultural community but do click
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  follow so you don't miss an episode and check out utreema.co.uk for
• 6:47
  all your fertilizers biopesticides and biostimulants completely
• 6:50
  unique technology that you won't find anywhere else we
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  don't sell it to other companies and rebrand it so um you'll know
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  it's unique and so yeah definitely worth checking it
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  out you might learn something if you've got any questions about cultivating
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  zucchinis or any type of crop then always happy to answer any questions on dm
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  phone calls emails just hit me up it's now the perineum between christmas and
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  new year so everyone's got plenty of time on their hands to try new things with
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  hydroponics i hope you're trying something new and i'll see you again tomorrow goodbye.