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Hydroponic Moss Cultivation · 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 Dr. Russell Sharp and today we're talking about a plant that doesn't normally
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  need soil anyway to grow.
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  It doesn't have any roots and that's because we're talking about growing moss
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  hydroponically, which can be done, but you might think, why would you want to?
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  Yesterday's podcast was all about weeds and moss is a massive problem in lawns,
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  but it's also grown for a number of
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  different reasons and so we'll talk about that today so we'll
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  delve into some innovative projects to the
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  growing moss as we
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  say mosses lack true roof and true roots and
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  instead absorb moisture directly from the environment.
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  Making them ideal candidates for hydroponic like
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  cultivation instead of soil they thrive on
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  moisture-retensive surfaces under controlled humidity
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  and lighting perfect for indoor farming setups
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  okay so there is one
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  standout project or
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  system or operation that's looked
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  at growing moss hydroponically and that is the moss in
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  prisons project which was part of a wider sustainability in
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  prisons project spp i think this
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  is in north america and they aimed at providing incarcerated individuals
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  with therapeutic science-based learning and
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  expect and they got the prisoners to look at
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  different ways to grow the moss the best species to grow
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  the moss how quickly the moss grew the growth
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  rates and things like this because there's two things here
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  that prisoners and moss have in
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  common and that's the moss grows really slowly and prisoners
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  especially in american prisons have got a
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  lot of time on their hands and so they make the perfect candidates
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  for studying moss growth and so this was
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  like a match made in heaven so some ecologists
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  gotten prisoners to study moss.
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  And there's some great pictures on the internet of like these gang members
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  with all tattoos you know all like with
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  loads of books about mosses and like with loads of moss around
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  them on on uh you call them a refectory table
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  and stuff like that so really interesting project
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  and the reason they were doing it was to try and stem wild moss cultivation
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  and look at more sustainable ways of growing moss why is wild moss harvesting
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  a problem well moss isn't grown in farms it's it's basically stripped from delicate
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  ecosystems especially in places like.
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  Uh canada and i believe falkland house as well and these delicate ecosystems
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  they're crucial the moss is crucial for moisture retention and providing habitat
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  for micro fauna and other.
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  Important plant species or rare plant species like carnivorous plants.
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  Sun jews and things like this growing the bog-like systems
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  the moss also helps regulate soil temperature humidity
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  and forests and wetlands and moss grows
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  back in these systems but very slowly so it
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  can take decades to regenerate after disturbance and
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  if you if you're harvesting the
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  peat as well as the moss then obviously releasing co2
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  and a big carbon sink from there
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  so why would you want to grow moss
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  in the first place is there a big market for it well it's
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  used a lot in aquascaping and terrariums enthusiasts
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  guests maintain moss in hydroponic moss poles and
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  for house plants so if you're growing
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  a swiss cheese plant a monstera or
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  a philodendron then you would grow them up a moss pole and
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  water the moss pole terrariums things like
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  this living walls and biophilic designs
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  so green walls that you find in high-end banks
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  and solicitor's offices in the city of london or wall
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  street or Manhattan may contain a lot of
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  moss and also in
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  like air purifiers a lot of air purifiers now contain moss
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  and like eco ones that you can you can grow the moss in your house especially
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  sphagnum moss sphagnum moss is like the one that grows in boggy conditions and
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  I've tried to grow sphagnum moss hydroponically with some degree of success
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  in the past there's only one place in.
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  Leicestershire where i'm based that contains that when
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  where sphagnum grows and it's called colville and colville has a grow shop so
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  shout out to colville is it colville hydroponic supplies or something like that
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  so yeah i've been to colville a few times to study their rare moss species but
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  it's the sort of moss that using air purifiers they grow in bogs and things like that,
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  we said while moss harvesting is a problem other end use applications of air
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  purifying water purifying as well,
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  so if you're looking to certain water purification systems, might currently
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  use moss or in the future could use moss.
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  It could be used as insulation once it's dried out, and packaging,
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  so it could potentially be used as a packaging, moss dried mats,
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  eco-friendly insulation, biodegradable packaging and things.
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  So there are loads of end uses of moss that some of them might be high value, some might be low value.
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  And remember, scientists have only scratched the surface when it comes to the
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  biochemistry of plants and their uses.
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  So there could be loads of interest in biochemistry in mosses.
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  There are a lot of purple sphagnum mosses and the pigments in them will be very
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  different to the pink pigments in most plants because they're completely unrelated
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  to all the seed plants, the flowering plants.
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  These are what some people term not prehistoric plants but i've forgotten the
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  word for them nope my mind's gone blank so what are the problems with cultivating hydroponics.
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  Moss you obviously you need an inner media you
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  need something to hold them they're not going to be rooting so you don't need to worry about that you
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  are going to need to maintain a high humidity misting but
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  they will suffer from fungal diseases so you're going
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  to have to do a delicate balance humidity control
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  peroxide levels misting other things
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  like this could sterilize it uv levels lighting you
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  want really low to medium light because no intense
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  direct sunlight moss does not like high temperatures
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  high light levels it will bleach and
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  go white if it gets really high light levels
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  as i say you want a sterile environment it's slow
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  growing and it's not just the fungal
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  diseases that are going to like mildew are going to
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  be a problem you're also going to get like bacteria and algae
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  growing on it and that's one of the big challenges of growing an aquatic plant
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  in hydroponics is you get algae growing on it so you
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  want a way of controlling that algae without actually killing the plant
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  so these are not it's going to be growing over the foliage and
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  most hydroponic crops algae is not growing over the foliage
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  whereas moss it is and then harvesting how are you going to harvest it obviously
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  gentle trimming to avoid disrupting the moss integrity and if you had if you
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  were looking to you know grow moss hydroponically for for packaging and insulation
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  then you'd have to do this it's absolute scale so you would need an automatic.
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  Moss harvester and system which shouldn't be too bad because you haven't got
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  any growing media so you know it's not beyond the wisdom man to actually think
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  up a system where you could grow moss hydroponically and automatically harvest
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  it i've just thought of the word as well and i I promise I haven't Googled it, it's primitive plants.
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  A lot of people refer to mosses and liverworts and ferns as primitive plants,
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  whereas some scientists think this is not an accurate description.
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  They just haven't evolved recently.
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  I like to call them primitive plants.
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  So, as I say, I've tried to grow them previously. I found that the algae,
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  the folio-fungal diseases were the biggest issue.
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  But, you know, some of these prisoners have managed to do it in the,
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  was it Moss in Prisons project?
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  There are no commercial moss cultivators in hydroponics.
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  So if you do think you want to have a play with it, there is a blue ocean of
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  business opportunities there because nobody else is cultivating moss hydroponically.
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  I don't think anyone else has looked at it okay certainly it
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  would be a good one to get investors and grants especially.
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  Be you know you could harvest up a load of government grants
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  in the UK or especially in Scotland for this they'd love
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  to give out grants for this sort of thing it offers a sustainable and
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  ethical alternative to wild harvesting with applications in
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  range from all sorts of crazy biophilic designs
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  to environmental remediation to packaging to even
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  the when you grow hanging baskets ornamental
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  hanging baskets the outer layer is often stuffed full of
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  sphagnum moss and so that that's a big user big
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  user of sphagnum moss nowadays hanging baskets have plastic
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  lining doesn't look as good as sphagnum moss so if you
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  could grow sphagnum moss sustainably and
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  at a good cost then there would be a market there from a
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  lot of horticultural nurseries for it so it's
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  an exciting frontier blending plant biology with
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  modern indoor farming technology so thanks for
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  joining me dr russell sharp the inventor of
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  liquid gold as we call it in the uk or gold leaf in the
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  us if you want to play around with growing moss
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  with gold leaf or liquid gold then more
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  than happy to help you and give you some advice and if you want any of the products
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  that you think might be useful for growing moss then get in touch with me thank
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  you very much stay curious stay green until tomorrow we'll have another wacky
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  episode with some crazy tech that's everything for Hygiponic Daily.
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  Thank you very much. Goodbye.