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GreenTech 2025: What's new in the word of greenhouse technology · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your one-stop shop for everything soilless cultivation.
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  Today I have been to Greentech, a very large trade show here in Amsterdam in
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  the Netherlands, and it's all to do with greenhouses and hydroponics.
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  And I just thought I'd give you some insights into
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  the show and where it's
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  headed in the last few years and the sort of state to
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  play as it is now because you may have been in the past and it's
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  a very different show than it used to be certainly before
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  covid so i used to exhibit i've exhibited.
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  A number of years green tech and it's changed a lot
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  it used to be used there used
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  to be a lot of fertilizer manufacturers here and
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  now there's only a scattering for probably
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  two or three probably one or two biostimulant
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  manufacturers you probably you know
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  five years ago there was probably 10 15 seaweed manufacturers
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  alone but today there was very few i
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  think there was one algae micro algae.
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  Company here at all and that's
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  very different to what it used to be in their place the show isn't
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  smaller it's probably the same size as
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  it's said it's always been it always takes up
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  about three or four of the big halls here in the rai or
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  the rai amsterdam in its place is
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  a lot of led lighting companies leds
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  are not that new but the number of companies has massively
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  increased in the last year or so obviously there's
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  chinese manufacturers but there's also european a
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  lot more dutch manufacturers of led now didn't see
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  one sodium lamp didn't see one plasma or
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  hps or anything like that did see
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  one uvc product is probably
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  a few more so a lot more lighting and
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  probably to the detriment of the show
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  because some of the lighting manufacturers were pointing
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  and positioning the lights at the visitors
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  and so that you were blasted with
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  them as you walked past and it was
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  uncomfortable to say the least a number of
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  visitors said to me that they wish they'd
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  brought sunglasses with them it was that bad so if you're
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  listening anyone from greentech have a word with the lighting.
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  Manufacturers they need to be properly and the visitors need to be properly
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  protected from them because they can cause damage to you also at greentech there's
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  always loads of twine manufacturers who knew that greenhouses use so much twine
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  for supporting tomato plants and cucumbers.
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  So many of them and it's a massive waste problem all
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  these plastic twine some of them are biodegradable or even
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  natural in origin so there's two different
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  types but why you need 50 different twine
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  manufacturers i have no idea there were some really
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  really good exhibits prevar
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  i think they're called they're that turnkey solutions for anything greenhouse
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  fantastic sort of geodesic dome display that
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  stood out they also had a bar which was lovely gave
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  me a free drink on the way pastor and really needed it over the
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  next few days i'll probably go through about six or
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  seven of the exhibitions and the technologies that were on
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  show some of the new technology and i'll sort
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  of say why i thought they were amazing i'll do it i'll do
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  a deep dive on each one on each
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  episode but there were there was a lot of new technology which
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  i liked because sometimes when you come to these shows it's
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  the same old people exhibiting the same old stands with the
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  same old technology and yet there was a lot of new stuff this year which was
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  really exciting so I'd made it I wouldn't say I'd made money today but I certainly
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  got my money's worth within the first five minutes of walking through the hall
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  hall and there's not many trade shows where you can say that so super excited.
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  About green tech so fantastic show from my perspective it did involve me getting
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  up at 4am to catch a flight from Heathrow, which wasn't great.
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  The bus ride from the parking to the airport took longer than the actual flight though.
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  So yeah, you could probably do, if you're based in England, you could do Green
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  Tech in a day because it shuts at 8pm.
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  So as I record this now, it's still open and I've not been at the show for a
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  good three hours. So it's a long show.
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  If you are there at six or seven o'clock there's a
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  lot of beer flowing there is yeah
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  a lot of dutch middle-aged men partying
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  with dutch middle-aged men it's quite the
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  homoerotic show after about 6 p.m it's quite
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  funny really because they have the disco music on and
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  stuff but there's there's very few women what else
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  there was one hilarious one today as well
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  there was one stand that had a
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  dart sensation no not luke littler dirk
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  the aubergenius and i'm not making this up
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  dirk is an actual aubergine
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  farmer who is a professional also a professional darts player so you will see
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  him at the at christmas time if you're if you're in your country they have the
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  darts on the television watch out for dirk the aubergenius he he was on this year and you could.
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  You could enter a competition to play against him at three
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  o'clock today every day and then today there
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  was he played one of the one of the attendees which.
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  Was quite funny so i've got a good video of that of the dirk
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  the over genius scoring a 180 i've
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  got a friend who is a professional golfer actually qualified
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  for the open and i'm going to have him on my
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  stand next time we exhibit somewhere and his name's adam
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  so i'm going to call him adam the apple and you're going to see you can
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  output him that's going to be my quirky thing so yeah.
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  There was let's me look let's look through some of these uh cards there
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  was yeah so pray on really good stand there
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  was a lot of biostimulants there was a lot of new organic products which
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  was exciting because we sell things a lot of
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  products that are not organic but there was a lot of organic versions
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  so we'll be interested in getting some of those there was
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  a really interesting cocoa supplier
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  from sri lanka and it was interesting not because
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  it was cocoa but they had fake cannabis
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  plants on their stand which is nothing
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  new you see you know these plastic plants but they
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  actually had ones that were showing symptoms of nutrient deficiency
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  and i thought that must be the most niche
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  of niche business ideas in
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  the whole of hydroponics let's create plastic cannabis
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  plants that show symptoms of nutrient deficiency i
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  mean fair play to you these people had bought them so you
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  know i'll probably buy one as well other more interesting
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  ones there was a norwegian company that were manufacturing alternatives
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  to cocoa and rockwool out of spruce bark
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  which had really good properties obviously they
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  were hyping it up saying it was better than cocoa but it'd be interesting to.
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  Do some trials and agree in a in our growing comparing cocoa slabs to rockwool
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  slabs to spruce bark slabs they were called fiber grow i'll do a podcast about
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  them and there's my there was a micro propagation company lab associates they
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  always exhibit they always have a really good.
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  Exhibit at green tech and i'm going to speak to
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  them again tomorrow because i want to do a follow up to my micro
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  propagation episode because i'm sure there
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  are lots of errors in it so those guys can have a
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  listen and say where i went wrong on that one got some
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  samples of that spruce bark as well everyone wants to have a look at it there
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  was a drone company and i'm
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  going to do my episode tomorrow on the use of drones in hydroponics because
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  they had a really good table and it said all the different
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  types of crops and all the different uses you could use drones for on those
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  crops so i'll go through that table tomorrow because that is really wicked and
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  they had drones on display and they have them in big cages because obviously
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  heaven forbid somebody somebody should to be struck by a drone?
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  What else have we got? Oh yeah, I got some stuff from Wagenen University,
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  which is the number one horticultural university possibly in the world.
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  It probably competes with UC Davis for being the number one horticultural university.
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  And they had a flyer on towards circular greenhouses and horticulture.
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  So that's about making sure that all of the inputs are recycled.
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  So it'd be really interesting to speak to them again.
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  About how you could sort of produce a circular loop hydroponic system because
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  there's a lot of waste even in recirculatory hydroponics so that'd be interesting
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  so lots to look at as i say it was a really good show there are other shows
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  around the world that are also worth visiting like,
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  cultivate in ohio is a good one i've been to fruit logistica
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  in berlin is good however is in berlin in january
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  which is very cold i drove there it's in eastern europe i didn't realize that
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  didn't realize how far eastern europe it was but i drove there where i wants
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  to exhibit and the people who run the place they are very very strict and i
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  got chased by some policemen shouting halt.
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  As i broke through a barrier to try and get my belongings back
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  to my car heaven forbid so i could i could
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  get to a ferry in time other good shows are fruit
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  attraction that's a really up and coming big show
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  but it's growing every year whereas green tech
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  which i've just been to today that's not so much growing it's
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  sort of staying the same size fruit attraction is
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  growing year on year that's in madrid in spain in september which sounds delightful
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  so i'll be there and there are a couple of shows in sourcing shows in china
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  that i like to go to and then there are the crop specific shows that you'll
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  have heard of around europe and america for your individual,
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  crop and they're good for seeing how technology is
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  being applied to certain situations but then i'd say for for an all-round bang
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  for your buck green tech you can't you can't beat it is 130 euros to get into
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  green tech and which is a bit of a pinch but yeah not too bad so until tomorrow
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  when i'll talk about drones thank you very much for listening and goodbye.