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Pesticide Residues - the hidden benefit of hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello there, and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily.
• 0:03
  In a previous episode, I talked about the benefits of growing plants hydroponically,
• 0:07
  but I think I missed out a very important reason why a lot of people grow their own produce.
• 0:13
  So this is more the amateur rather than the professional hydroponics,
• 0:16
  and that is to control what goes into your food.
• 0:22
  And this includes pesticides, but it also includes heavy metals and other toxins and things like that.
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  So in the European Union and in America and most developed world,
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  your food is tested routinely for minimum residue levels or MRLs for pesticides.
• 0:44
  So there have to be certain MRLs for certain pesticides. So pesticides can be used on crops,
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  some can be used on organic crops, some can only be used on conventional crops,
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  and they're grown and normally
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  there's authorisation around they
• 0:59
  can't be used a certain number of days before harvest
• 1:02
  a pre-harvest interval however they
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  can be used on flowering and fruiting crops and
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  the and the leaves that are eaten and things like this just that the residues
• 1:12
  have to break down and they have to be at this limit before they are eaten but
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  there still is pesticides there and this is and obviously not every cabbage
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  and every lettuce is tested so you could have higher than the minimum amounts
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  and so that's a concern for people.
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  If you want pesticide-free, you can grow in a grow room and exclude all pests.
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  And so you wouldn't need any insecticides or minticides if you were really good at controlling that.
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  So that's a really good reason to grow hydroponically indoors,
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  the ability to remove pesticides.
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  So even lots of the vertical farms, commercial hydroponic units,
• 1:49
  they say no pesticides are used in the production of this.
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  And if you're buying fruits and vegetables in a supermarket.
• 1:57
  People don't care they might say they care but they don't care they're just
• 2:01
  going to buy on price and looks certainly in the uk in the mediterranean they
• 2:06
  might squeeze a tomato or smell it,
• 2:09
  and judge it that way but not in the uk certainly not and it's all just looks
• 2:13
  and price and so that's what they're based on they don't care if it's if it
• 2:17
  says pesticide free on the packet or on the description whereas for me when
• 2:22
  i'm growing my tomatoes i care deeply that i know what's gone into them.
• 2:26
  And so I don't care if my tomato cost me five times as much to grow and was a ball ache to grow.
• 2:34
  The fact that I know that I've not sprayed any synthetic pesticides on them is a big deal for me.
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  And it's more of an issue for, you know, foods that you don't cook and expose
• 2:45
  to high temperatures because you know they're definitely not going to be broken
• 2:48
  down in the cooking process.
• 2:51
  And I'm, if you've seen any of my YouTube videos and these are like,
• 2:55
  I'm passionate about the use of carcinogenic metals on crops.
• 2:59
  And I think this is a big problem, the use of things like nickel and cobalt,
• 3:04
  but also things like copper in organic farming. I think they're highly poisonous.
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  I don't want them in my food, especially organic food. And so if I can grow
• 3:11
  as much produce at home without the use of these chemicals, the better,
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  you know, I really want to grow really good,
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  crops and i think you know we we are developing new ways
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  to reduce pesticide usage and things like this we always
• 3:26
  look back at old footballers old soccer players and
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  you see their receding hairlines at age 25 and i
• 3:32
  think that's probably due to the amount of pesticides and horrible
• 3:36
  chemicals they've eaten over the years how does it explain why these
• 3:39
  these men are so bald so young and stuff like
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  that because they've been poisoned their entire life and lead
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  paint and things like this lead lead is a the reason
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  i'm doing this podcast today is because i read a report about
• 3:50
  lead in water tap water
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  and in the soil in wales in the uk and
• 3:56
  how the government just hasn't been testing for it it's been leaking out of
• 4:00
  all these old lead mines and poisoning the soil and stuff like that so i think
• 4:07
  you know even if you're growing in soil in your back garden and you haven't
• 4:10
  lived there you don't know what the soil was used for you don't know the land
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  was used for before you were there.
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  It wasn't virgin forest in most cases where most people live, so you don't know.
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  And if you've got an allotment in the UK, there's probably been 50 people there
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  before, and someone might have used something like mercury salts back in the
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  1920s and things like this.
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  So in hydroponics, you can exclude anything that might be in the soil remaining.
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  Things like metaldehyde or some of those pesticides I've talked about in the past,
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  which still get detected even though they haven't been used since
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  the 1970s on squash crops and things like this so
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  hydroponics you can exclude the soil and all
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  the potential toxins that are in there you can
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  exclude insects so you don't need to use insecticides places
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  in the uk and america where you've got really toxic industrial
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  soils even where people live like in the town
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  called corby in the uk and it had a a iron
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  factory making steel steel steel
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  plant and loads of new houses have been built there even
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  though the soil is poisoned and the people who live in those houses aren't allowed
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  to grow fruits and vegetables in their gardens because
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  of that so they would have to grow hydroponically maybe there's
• 5:23
  someone should set up a hydroponic shop in
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  corby there isn't one there's no growth shop in corby there isn't
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  well in brun nearby and there's one in kettering all these small
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  towns but there's not one in actually corby where all the
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  and where the steelworks were interesting fact about
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  corby there's loads of scottish people in corby for
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  some reason they're all brought down to work in
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  the steelworks so most people speak like me but
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  about a third of the population speak with a strong scottish accent so i think
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  hydroponics the ability to to grow your own produce and reduce the amount of
• 5:58
  pesticides and other toxins heavy metals in there is is a really big opportunity
• 6:04
  and a benefit that's often overlooked.
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  If you're using reverse osmosis, water.
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  You can get those heavy metals out of the water, things like the lead.
• 6:13
  Carbon filtration of the water, things like that. We'll get them out.
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  Otherwise, they could be harming your health, especially if you are growing plants in soil.
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  So say your garden is next to a busy road.
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  Well, in the 1970s and 60s and 80s, lead, petrol or gasoline,
• 6:33
  as it is in America, that would be pumped out and that would be in the soil.
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  And that's not gone anywhere because lead doesn't just leach out very easily.
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  So you could have elevated lead lead levels if you live that next to a very
• 6:45
  busy road in london there's there's a road i think it's called the inner inner
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  circular road and it's always full of traffic and there are houses right up
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  next to the road and i think it's one of the must be one of the worst places to live.
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  And certainly i wouldn't eat any fruits or vegetables growing in the garden
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  same if you lived on the underpass of a an airport where they dump fuel there's
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  a small town called glossop in Derbyshire in the UK here.
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  And there, all the traffic has to go through these tiny streets because there's
• 7:18
  big hills on either side of this town.
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  And the houses are right up against it and all the petrol fumes and diesel fumes
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  build up in this town called Glossop. It's in between Sheffield and Manchester.
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  Again, I wouldn't be eating many fruits and vegetables if I lived on the high street in Glossop.
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  You'll know a town near you where the soil is probably.
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  Highly polluted and where if you were growing plants you grow
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  them hydroponically for me i'm lucky i live in the middle of the
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  countryside my garden before before
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  it was a garden it was a sheep field
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  so there's probably not going to be pesticides on a sheep grassland before
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  that it was an old medieval abbey that was
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  demolished and so yeah i don't think the monks were
• 8:00
  using any pesticides back then hopefully not so
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  i've got the beauty of hydroponics or soil growing but i think
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  the ability for hydroponics to produce good
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  quality crops in polluted areas or just
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  where you're super concerned about pollutants maybe certain
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  types of crops and vegetables where it might
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  be accumulating then yeah that
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  might be one to look at so don't always think is it
• 8:24
  cheaper it's cheaper to buy it in the supermarket or it's
• 8:26
  cheaper just to buy it from a mate dave who grows it yes it
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  might be cheaper but you can't control exactly what
• 8:33
  goes in it whereas if you grow it yourself you can that's been
• 8:36
  hydroponics daily for today thank you very much for listening if you
• 8:39
  are listening on spotify please could you give the
• 8:42
  podcast a review i don't think you can do written reviews
• 8:45
  it's just clicking five stars i would give it a four
• 8:48
  star don't do a three star please give it a five star and that'll really help
• 8:52
  and it boosts up the charts and it boosts up the ability for people to find
• 8:57
  and search this podcast so you'll help other people other hydroponic growers
• 9:01
  find it by giving that review so that would be really helpful until tomorrow
• 9:05
  thank you very much goodbye.