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Why Is West Virginia Missing from the Hydroponics Map? · Hydroponics Daily

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  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, and as I say at the end of most episodes,
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  I am trying to get a complete coverage of the listener figures from around the world.
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  I want a listener in every country, in every state, in the USA.
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  And I've nearly done it, but West Virginia is holding out on me for some reason.
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  And I thought this is interesting. What makes West Virginia so uninterested in hydroponics?
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  So I'm going to do a deep dive into the hydroponic sector in West Virginia,
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  see if it is booming and everyone's just ignoring me, or is there a reason why
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  West Virginia is not interested in hydroponics?
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  So we definitely know they're not listening. and
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  i had a look at some information on west virginia i asked
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  chat gpt to rank all the
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  states in america by how many growth shops there were and how
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  many hydroponic companies there were and chat gpt as it's doing recently is
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  going yeah that's probably too much thinking for me i'll give you a few states
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  but i'm not going to give you the full list and i'm not going to do a deep dive
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  and so he just said now there's no hydroponic companies in west virginia which
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  is complete nonsense. I know that for a fact.
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  And so, yeah, really disappointed with chat GPT at the moment.
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  It's just not bothering to do anything you ask it to do unless you swear at
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  it. And even then it struggles.
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  So I don't believe that for a second. It certainly said that,
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  you know, California is the top one and obviously it is.
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  So what makes West Virginia, well, it's had a look at GDP, see if it was a very poor state.
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  And yes, it is in the bottom three for GDP per capita.
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  So that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone's poor.
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  It could be that there's just no center of finance.
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  Not everyone in England is rich, but the money generated in the city of London
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  means that our GDP is far higher than it is.
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  So London as a
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  financial center brings up GDP per capita
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  massively if we didn't have london our gdp per capita would
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  be very very small and could this
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  be the case for west virginia and and if it
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  is if it's inaccessible and it
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  can't get to any centers of commerce and major
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  population areas with wealth then hydroponic crops will not be useful because
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  you can't there's no one to pay for them basically never mind eat them and so
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  have a little bit of look at the geography and while the centre of West Virginia
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  does seem to be quite inaccessible compared to.
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  To major areas of conurbations and areas of population. There is a panhandle
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  out towards the east that is quite close to Washington DC.
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  So it's about an hour and 20 minutes drive from Washington DC.
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  So any hydroponic company that's within the distance, a hydroponic company could
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  service a major city like Washington.
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  But the more remote areas in the Appalachian hills and mountains,
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  then they would be inaccessible.
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  And obviously there's lots of
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  myths and legend about the Appalanchians and the mining communities
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  and things like that where people lived there so I'm not going to
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  go into that but yeah that could explain why
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  so few so little interest in
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  hydroponics from West Virginia and then the other thing obviously is the the
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  legalization of cannabis in the US and Virginia
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  it's illegal to grow at home even for medical use
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  and recreational traditional use is
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  illegal and medical use
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  is very strictly controlled so it's
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  not going to have lots of legal hydroponic
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  cannabis growers so another reason why
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  searches for hydroponics and hydroponic podcasts would
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  be low it's also not a dry state so i
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  don't know how that maybe people are more concerned with drinking in west
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  virginia than they are smoking there is one wet county with a dry town and just
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  looking at a map of wet versus dry states in america and there's something called
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  a moist county what does a moist county mean sounds dirty doesn't it.
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  Googled it and it just turns out that there's basically more restrictions
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  than wet counties but not as severe as dry counties so i got obviously there
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  is hydroponics in west virginia and i got a list of 10 from google first things
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  that came up when you put where west virginia hydroponics in and the first one is the.
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  Rvu university and west virginia
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  university i guess and they are
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  growing hydroponically they've got a course growing
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  hydroponically and it's funded by nasa as well so working
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  with fourth and fifth graders so that's very young
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  isn't that fourth and fifth graders don't go to university here in the u in
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  the uk but i guess they have extension programs and things like that so really
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  good and what can we say about it not a lot it looks to be a stem project there
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  is also a hydroponics course at West Virginia Community College.
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  So that's interesting, trying to teach people hydroponics as well as traditional farming.
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  And then there are some commercial successes. And the first one being Mox Farm.
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  So Mox Farm and Greenhouse, that has been going since 2006 when they did their first hydroponic crop.
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  And as I said, they make market produce
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  in the dc and baltimore areas so as i
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  say probably in that panhandle area if you know i don't
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  know where berkeley springs is but i would imagine it's that side
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  of west virginia and paul and rainette mock are growing
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  lettuce and things like cherry tomatoes and nice
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  lola rosa red lettuce is there and so it's a hydroponic
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  system but it's outdoors in a grow tunnel very very
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  common this type of production facility i've seen
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  that in ohio lots of family farms lots of
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  family nurseries are producing that and obviously when
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  you buy lettuce from mocks then you get in you you get it the whole lettuce
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  in your produce bag so really good flavor it would appear so that's a fantastic
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  one and then there's a couple of aquaponic companies as well again growing in
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  greenhouses so aquaponic seems to be really popular.
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  In west virginia the first one is in mingo county
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  which mingo is an old cornish name i
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  used to know someone called darren mingo he now runs works for the
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  fertilizer organization here in the uk shout out
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  to darren mingo and yeah so
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  let's have a look at this one partners so
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  there's two guys who founded this this company and what
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  are they called they are called blue acre aquaponics
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  that's it so they are situated
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  along us 52 at burning creek in kermit kermit
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  the frog all right so let's have a look at what these guys are up
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  to so interestingly we said this before on the podcast when we looked at north
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  dakota there's a lot of grants available for setting up these ventures so you
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  do hear people in you know say that you know or the federal government and the
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  government you know my success is in spite of them not because of them but these guys received a.
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  Abandoned Mine Land Grant, which sounds like it's abandoned landmines,
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  the sort of thing you would get in Africa and war zones. But no,
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  this is abandoned mines.
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  So obviously the Appalachians, really big mining communities,
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  and like in the UK, Wales and places like that, when mining stops,
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  then the communities really suffer.
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  People can't just move the whole community.
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  And so the grants here helped set up that, and the aquaponics boomed from there.
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  Now, interestingly, they have a dual system where they
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  have sort of aeroponics where there's a spray mist
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  onto the roots but because it's aquaponics there
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  is potential for the blocking of a filter because you
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  can get organic material from the fish poo blocking
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  the blocking the filters so they also have a dripper system so it's
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  a fail safe so they have both systems running at the same time a
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  dripper sort of nft system and then an aeroponic misting
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  system that runs most of the time and then they
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  are planning vertical wall systems for strawberries so ease
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  of harvest on a vertical wall is the main reason why you would do
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  strawberries on a vertical wall it's really interesting and again
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  they are applying for usda grants to set
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  up the wall for the expansion into the
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  strawberry farming so so when they said
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  that when they took over the food and farm coalition when they so they're
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  not they didn't start this aquaponic farm they'd already
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  secured 70 000 usda grant
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  for equipment and supplies so after satisfying the
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  requirements for that grad they had they had options for
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  an expansion and rather than supplying into dc
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  and baltimore they're supplying into the local west virginia market
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  and kentucky area kentucky is a big area for lots
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  of greenhouses being set up but traditionally all
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  the fresh produce was imported just like
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  in other remote states with lack of a traditional hydroponic and horticultural.
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  Sector like north dakota from looking at the website for blue waker aquaponics
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  as well it looks like they're growing in some crops in lecker or leica which is good for like.
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  Ebon flood and nft and then also looks
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  like they've got some dwc big tanks
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  for growing the lettuce on polystyrene floating trays
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  so there's a number of different advantages of that one
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  big advantage is you can just add the take the trays out add
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  new fresh trays at the other end and so you can sort of
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  progress your crop through the greenhouse without having to move trays
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  and tables and things like this and move massive nft
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  systems in place so yeah really nice
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  system got what looks like a fairly old
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  greenhouse though with lots of metal in
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  it and some fairly old sodium lamps as well
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  so any grants probably you probably look at
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  a fresh greenhouse and your lamps perhaps for that but depends
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  on you know the business case and things like that so a really interesting hydroponic
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  sets up there and don't see many commercial
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  hydroponic systems with the lecker clay
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  pebbles type growing system so it's really
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  interesting to look at and they're grown swiss chard as well which.
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  Is a not a very
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  common hydroponic crop but is certainly
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  a good one to grow hydroponically might actually might
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  be one of those crops that benefits from a little bit
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  of sodium in the growing media as well so if you've got slightly
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  salty water that's because it's in the beet family so sugar
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  beets beet roots chard they're all the same species
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  just different strains okay so yeah
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  that's today's hydroponic daily is what i
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  could find out about hydroponics in west virginia if you know more then please
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  do get in touch i keep on speaking to my american friends my american colleagues
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  and i was at a trade show in madrid yesterday speaking to american sweet potato
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  growers and just saying, do you know anyone in West Virginia?
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  Send them this podcast and I need a listener there.
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  Hopefully this has done it. Hopefully everyone in West Virginia will now be
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  listening to Hydroponic Stallion. What's the capital of West Virginia? Let me check.
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  Charleston. There you go. I wonder if the dance to Charleston is from there.
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  I've managed to get through the whole of this podcast without singing the song
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  about West Virginia, which my colleague Matthew insisted I should sing.
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  I'm not going to do it. I'm going to just leave you there and say, if
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  you like this podcast and you thought it was any good
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  you found value in it and it wasn't the worst podcast you've ever
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  listened to in the world then please do leave us an
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  apple podcast review it helps tremendously i
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  shoot up the charts when anyone leaves an apple podcast review it's amazing
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  it's like a rocket to the moon just like a nasa hydroponics program at west
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  virginia university and if you're on any other podcast platform don't bother
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  leaving a podcast review because it doesn't make any difference whatsoever.
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  Just chill out, relax, and wait for the next episode of Hydroponics Daily.
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  Thank you very much for listening. Goodbye.