Latest / Hydroponics Daily / The best new product, why it could be better, why it won't, and it looks like a toilet seat

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The best new product, why it could be better, why it won't, and it looks like a toilet seat · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hello there, and welcome back to
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  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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  We make amazing fertilizers, novel biostimulants, and organic biopesticides,
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  including liquid gold in the UK, or gold leaf as it's called in the US,
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  the good old United States of America.
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  Today, we're not going to talk about fertilizers, biostimulants,
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  or biopesticides. We're going to
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  talk about the best product I have seen released on the market this year.
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  Now, at Hydroponics Daily, it used to be a daily podcast. Now,
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  I only record an episode when there's something to talk about,
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  and this is the best product I have seen. It is not one we sell.
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  It's not even by people who are partners with us or even bump into on a daily
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  basis so it's a piece of a kit it's a physical piece of kit so i say it's the
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  best product i've seen on the market this year,
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  i'm going to tell you how it could be even better,
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  and then i'm going to tell you why it won't be any better.
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  And not because the people behind it can't make it better.
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  There is a product that's been launched very recently, which is the worst product
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  I've seen launched for a very long time.
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  And the problem with this product is it's completely over-engineering a solution
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  to a problem that doesn't even really exist and could be,
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  solved, that problem solved, by just replacing it with a very very simple product
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  now i can't tell you what it is because that would cause too much drama in the
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  hydroponics industry if i started slacking off somebody's,
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  new product that they have spent ages developing but yeah,
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  if you want to know what that is speak to matthew my colleague he's out visiting
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  grow shops in the liverpool area today so um have a word with him and no don't
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  he'll tell he will go mad for me saying that because he doesn't like drama and,
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  beef and things like that so um he gets upset with me because i can just sit in my office,
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  so yeah what is the best product that i have seen well it was on the hydro bros youtube site,
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  they're a shop down in croydon it used to be called croydon hydroponics but
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  obviously that is a terrible name so they've changed it to hydro bros which
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  is a far better name because it is,
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  globally reach and the only thing good about croydon is that cape moss came from croydon now.
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  Isn't it close to crystal palace is that croydon i'm not sure there's lots of
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  good things in croydon anyway they they went to a trade show i think and they
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  saw this product and i think it's really good it's the maxi bright maxi led,
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  pro ts 40 watt horseshoe,
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  it's an under canopy light but they're individual for large plant pots.
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  So it has almost like a spike that goes into the plant pot and then a horseshoe LED light around it.
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  Each individual plant gets its own under canopy light which we know can be really good for,
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  but for a number of reasons under canopy lighting could be good it can increase
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  the photosynthesis that the whole plant can undertake because obviously if you're
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  just giving light from the top the understory,
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  can't maximize those leaves can't maximize photosynthesis and the quality of
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  light down there gets degraded because the reds and the blues get absorbed and
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  it's mainly green light, which is inferior for photosynthesis.
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  It can also improve transpiration and water movement by opening their stomata
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  further down and minimizing things like fungal diseases that could develop down there.
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  Now, it's a really good product. I've never seen another product on the market like this.
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  Let me know if you have, but I think it's a fantastic product.
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  It's going to be copied. I'm sure somebody's going to copy it if they haven't
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  got a design patent, but design patents are probably the easiest to get and also the weakest.
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  So I would imagine somebody's going to copy it unfortunately because it's a
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  shame because somebody's obviously had a really good idea here,
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  i'm not sure if it's tunable i'm not sure what the so 40 watts seems pretty
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  high because it's only under canopy lighting we're talking about you're not
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  you're not going to rely on this for a hole of lights now what are the disadvantages
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  no i'm going to talk about the disadvantages i'm going to talk about how it could be better,
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  now you can also get and hydrobrows sell is.
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  Horseshoe drippers.
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  So they allow the water to disperse all around the plant pots rather than just
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  in one part where the spike is.
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  Now, if you combine them both, then you could have a light and a horseshoe dripper in one.
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  What would be the advantages of that? The heat from the light would go into
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  the water, which would cool the light better than just allowing for passive
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  air movement so the leds would last a lot longer.
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  It would also heat the water so that you would increase soil temperature.
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  So if your plants were on a cold surface, like a concrete floor,
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  then the soil, that can often be a problem because it can mean that root temperature is too low.
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  Even if air temperature is high, you just can't overcome that coldness coming
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  up from the, or dragging heat out of your plants, whichever way you want to look at it.
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  And so you get warmer roots, which can be faster growing roots and more healthy roots, potentially.
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  So you could heat the water up and that heat is not going into the air.
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  So you get better control over air temperature as well, because you're not constantly
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  heating the air with added lighting.
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  Now, those two features together would be an amazing product.
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  You won't get it for two reasons, because one, it would cost too much to develop that product.
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  And people to buy people wouldn't necessarily they'd want one at one time and
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  the other feature at the other another time it's very rare that someone's going
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  to come into a grow shop and want both things at the same time under canopy,
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  watering and a horseshoe,
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  dripper it would be an amazing product the other main reasons why it's not going to be there is because,
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  the inherent problem with under canopy lighting anyway is that people will get
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  it go potentially going with a hose and start spraying water everywhere and
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  there's a massive you know electricity and water,
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  it's a massive issue so under canopy lighting for me the biggest concern is non,
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  not non-experts but people who are not safety conscious spraying water around near the lighting units.
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  If you were to actively sell a product that combined water and electricity together,
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  in this sort of way you would have to be 100 certain that it's not going to
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  fail that somebody who's even misusing it is not going to electrocate themselves
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  so i wouldn't be confident personally in developing a product that mixed lighting
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  with irrigation even though in an ideal world,
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  that would be the best solution so,
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  yeah maybe the guys at maxi bright who i think owned by highlights who we don't
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  work with as i said and we don't even interact with on a daily basis they don't
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  distribute our products or anything like that,
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  i think you know the boffins there that could potentially produce that but i
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  would say put my money on it,
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  then probably not but if they did find a safe way of doing it and i think it
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  could be a really good really amazing product whether it would sell or not i
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  don't know because you can have the best product in the world.
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  It won't necessarily sell because gold leaf or liquid gold it's called in the
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  uk is my hero product it's the best invention i've ever made it's every product
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  every nutrient in one bottle it dechlorinates it's ph perfect,
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  it's an amazing product but is it my best selling product best invention no the most,
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  off the cuff oh yeah we can do that yeah that's not not a problem products sell like hotcakes you know,
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  like we have a product called liquid gypsum and that is our number one or number
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  two selling product here in the uk and the only reason sell that is because
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  my wife asked me if we you know we had,
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  a product for problem x and i said yeah i could sell liquid gypsum i suppose
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  for that and then that's that goes bonkers we sell far far.
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  You know 100 000 times more of that than we do our gold leaf or liquid gold it's in the uk so yeah,
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  who knows all you can strive to do is create the best product and then,
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  hope that somebody buys what you've put your heart and soul into,
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  same if you're a grower you know you can choose which crops to grow you think
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  you know you could say oh wasabi is going to grow be really everyone's going
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  to love it or and you might find that people want you know,
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  purple carrots you know or tiny little purple carrots or something like that
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  you never know what the market says you know if you ask the as was it henry
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  ford who said if i asked the customer what they wanted,
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  they would have asked for a faster horse something like that you can do market
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  research you can you can have great inventions but really it's only when you
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  come to sell a product that it becomes useful,
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  and yeah So just thought I'd let you share that.
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  I haven't got any pictures that I can share of the Maxi Bright Maxi LED Pro TS 40W horseshoe.
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  But if you go onto the Hydro Bros YouTube or...
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  Instagram page i guess they've got tiktok as well you'll see that,
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  i don't know if highlights have got one if you wanted to speak to you in the
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  uk speak to their reps speak to andy,
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  then i'm sure they will have a sample for you so yeah let me know what you think
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  of this product do you think it's got any flaws do you think it's got any disadvantages,
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  no idea on the price but yeah let me know and if you've got any of the products
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  that you think are really good if you are making them selling them use them,
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  let me know because i'm more than happy to feature new and exciting products
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  on the podcast thank you very much for listening,
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  if you i'll do this thing as usual you could leave a rated review written rated
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  review you could share this podcast with a friend who's interested in things
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  like under canopy lighting but at the very least just check out utreema.co.uk,
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  if you're driving don't check it out nobody nobody writes in a podcast url apparently
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  when they're listening to podcasts.
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  But if you think, oh, I'd like to check out what that guy was talking about,
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  utreema.co.uk. And if you can't spell utreema, it's Latin for wasabi.
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  So just Google wasabi, find the scientific name, the genus name, it's utreema.
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  All right, that's enough of my waffle. Thank you very much for listening.
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  Until the next podcast episode, goodbye.