Latest / Hydroponics Daily / Copper in Hydroponics

Transcript

Copper in Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. I'm Dr.
• 0:02
  Russell Sharp, the inventor of Goldleaf, and today we're talking about copper,
• 0:06
  which is an essential micronutrient.
• 0:09
  It's essential for photosynthesis. It's essential for lignin production, so woody tissue.
• 0:14
  So if you've got a perennial crop that produces wood, then it's essential for that.
• 0:18
  And then it's also essential for the functioning of enzymes.
• 0:22
  So it's what's called a coen, it's involved in coenzymes so often enzymes that
• 0:28
  do specific jobs have a metal element that is required for the energy flow into
• 0:33
  the enzymes functioning and copper is one of those very important,
• 0:38
  metals for that you're very rarely
• 0:40
  going to see deficiencies so i've not really put a symptom of deficiency
• 0:43
  up that's because it's not due to
• 0:46
  a lack of copper when you have a copper deficiency because there's loads of
• 0:49
  copper around it certainly in fertilizers and hydroponics it's
• 0:52
  when the pH rises too high and then it.
• 0:55
  Falls out of solution but as I've
• 0:58
  said previously like with manganese that's going
• 1:01
  to happen at a rate far lower than
• 1:04
  would occur for iron so you're going to see symptoms of iron deficiency way
• 1:07
  way way before you see copper deficiency you'd have
• 1:10
  to artificially create a situation where
• 1:13
  you're going to get copper deficiency for that to occur so high.
• 1:16
  Soil pH and as long as your copper is nicely chelated
• 1:19
  in you and you're not using something like copper sulfate the
• 1:24
  source of your copper then you should be fine and a high value
• 1:27
  fertilizer like gold leaf or in the uk liquid
• 1:31
  gold then that's going to be no problem at all
• 1:33
  you're probably going to see more often
• 1:36
  in horticulture excess copper and
• 1:40
  problems due to excess copper and that's because
• 1:43
  copper is used as a fungicide in grapes or
• 1:47
  where that's not allowed they put it on as a copper fertilizer
• 1:50
  with a wink and a nudge and
• 1:53
  it's for its fungicidal activity copper is a horrible element
• 1:56
  when used as a fungicide because it's
• 2:00
  a heavy metal it's poisonous to humans it's poisonous to all
• 2:03
  soil biology it'll kill everything in its
• 2:05
  sight so don't use copper fungicides use
• 2:09
  something like kytosan or you know something a bit
• 2:12
  more benign copper builds up it doesn't go
• 2:14
  anywhere so there's lots of vineyards with stupidly high
• 2:18
  levels of copper in them over the years bordeaux mixture which
• 2:21
  is a form of copper has now been banned in the uk it's just
• 2:25
  not very nice it's going to kill all your beneficial microbes and it'll
• 2:28
  interfere with the absorption of other nutrients as well so it does make a nice
• 2:33
  blue color when you add it to a solution that's all it's got going for it really
• 2:36
  so copper very rarely deficient often is an issue in certain crops and try and.
• 2:42
  Avoid copper fertilizers and copper pesticides if possible thank you very much.