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"Hydroponic Solutions for Pharmaceutical Botanicals" · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and today we're talking drugs.
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  No we're not talking illegal drugs, we're talking legal drugs,
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  pharmaceuticals and how the precursors to the drugs that you get from your doctor,
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  from your pharmacist, could potentially be grown hydroponically.
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  Now lots of drugs start off as botanicals,
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  they are plants that are harvested and the
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  extracts are purified and many
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  many many drugs are either started off
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  as as plants or were once plants and
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  are now synthesized in a factory so there
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  are some really interesting examples so the pacific yew is
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  where we get taxol from and the scientific name
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  from you is taxus so taxol is the active ingredient
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  in that pacific yew that is an
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  anti-cancer drug and the madagascan periwinkle
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  is a plant that causes that
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  cures or controls non-hodkins lymphoma and
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  let's have a think willow is used was
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  is the precursor to aspirin these
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  are all off the top of my head let's think of some other drugs well heroin
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  methadone codeine these are all opiates opiates that start life as an opium
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  poppy i think the there's a company in the uk who's to control all the opium
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  poppies around the world i'm not sure they grow them in the uk so it's near
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  oxford somewhere like that and very very little information about that company probably.
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  It's controlled information not much on companies house
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  and things like that not sure where they grow the opiates and things like this
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  but there so or whether
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  they still grow them or they're made in a factory anyway lots
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  of medicinal plants are are used for pharmaceuticals
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  i'm going to ignore legal cannabis so
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  that's an aside there's too much on hydroponics
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  about legal cannabis this is just for those interested in other
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  pharmaceuticals so ginsengs and
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  other such things plants artemisia stuff like that so why would you grow them
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  hydroponically well it allows precise control over nutrient regimes light temperature
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  sterility and that means that you've a much more consistent crop at the end
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  or in theory you should have. Whereas if you're growing outdoors in soil.
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  Depending on where you grow, you have different conditions and different produce, a bit like wine.
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  You could have different drugs that had different effects like different wines.
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  So you want consistency and hydroponics gives you that.
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  And you can grow a number of different plants. So let's have a look at some of those.
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  Ginseng. Chinese and Panax ginsengs
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  have been extensively studying hydroponics because they're currently
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  wild harvested and the harvesting of those
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  from the wild can lead to habitat degradation so
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  juvenile ginseng grown hydroponically shows.
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  A significant increase in ginseng no
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  side content that's the active ingredient and including
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  the leaves and the roots and you harvest the tube i think it's a tuber or
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  a rhizome and hydroponic ginseng
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  can even be used to synthesize zinc
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  oxide nanoparticles with anti-cancer properties
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  and then fermentation of the
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  hydroponically ginseng with beneficial bacteria enhances
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  its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity making
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  it an attractive ingredient in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics
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  which is another one to consider but a lot of botanicals go
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  into cosmetics other high-value botanicals
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  artemisia and trans tradescantia easy
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  for me to say they're traditional methods you can
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  increase growth and biomass with hydroponics i think artemisia
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  is used in anti-malarial compounds
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  now it's the wormwoods are artemisia but
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  potentially you could i think that's used in absinthe
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  as well so you could have hydroponic absinthe there's one for you turmeric ashwagandha
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  bacopa holy basil centella these all exhibit up to threefold higher alkaloid
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  and active ingredient compounds compared to field-grown plants.
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  So amazing opportunities there. So even though you get.
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  It's more expensive, you could increase production and yield and active ingredient content.
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  Now when it comes to a tomato, a tomato is a tomato in the supermarket and if
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  it's red it's red and people will buy it.
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  They don't care if the antioxidant activity is three times higher or the lycopene
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  content is 50% higher because it's just a tomato and so you've got to compete
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  on it being just a tomato.
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  Whereas if you're growing pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, then you do care about
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  the active ingredient content very much so.
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  So that's where hydroponics becomes much more of an advantage in these situations.
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  So if you're looking for a plant to grow,
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  then pharmaceuticals or cosmetics would be a better choice than a leafy green,
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  which would be a standard product
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  traded on very low margins so hydroponic
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  systems you could grow them in shipping container farms if
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  it's a small amount or a vertical farm if it's large amounts something
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  like madagascan periwinkle needs vast amounts of biomass
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  to produce just a small amount of the drug so you
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  probably want to go in a vertical farm for that one the other
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  advantage is it's pesticide free potentially so
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  and something that pharmaceutical grade purity would you'd want and then also
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  reduction in molds and if it's a botanical that's being sold rather than like
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  a formulated product then it would have to be proven to be low in mold or free
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  of mold just like in legal cannabis so that's important to consider.
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  You've also got year-round production, and your finance director will be happy
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  because you're not having to wait 12 months to produce the crop.
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  And it's consistency and regular supply and things like this.
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  So you could tailor the nutrient regime and the additives to stimulate production
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  of the bioactives when required as well, just before harvest.
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  The disadvantage is the costly infrastructure, lighting, automation, monitoring.
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  And because they are obscure plants then
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  they're not you can't just get a list of requirements
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  and nutrient requirements and growth requirements off
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  the internet you have to come up with these so there's a
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  disadvantage but it's a challenge and it's the reason why you could
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  have an advantage over everyone else once you sort them and then
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  obviously it comes to pharmaceuticals there are massive
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  regulatory hurdles to overcome if you
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  wanted to launch a new pharmaceutical it would cost you millions and
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  millions of pounds and you would need to
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  have all sorts of certificates and checks and things
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  like this so just as you would if you're going to produce a
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  biopesticide from a hydroponic crop cost you at
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  least a million pounds so there's to
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  consider something to consider other options if you're
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  doing something like a kombucha so it's not
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  necessarily a pharmaceutical but a health product you
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  could have the fermentation microbial technology tanks
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  on site and you could use the co2 to feed.
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  The grow rooms that's another option so and there's
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  lots of opportunities there in pharmaceuticals cosmetics and health
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  products for hydroponics if you've got
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  an interesting one that you'd like to feature on hydroponics daily then please
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  do get in touch and if you think i've missed something important then please do
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  get in touch as well so it's off hydroponic cultivation
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  of medicinal botanicals offers clean potent and efficient
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  production paths potentially there's a couple of challenges but
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  those challenges are potentially your unique selling points
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  over everybody else if you get it right so i've
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  tried to grow ginseng before in my greenhouse i grew it for five or six years
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  and then i realized that the seeds i bought off ebay were not actually ginseng
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  they were pennsylvanian ash completely worthless plants so always make sure
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  when you're growing pharmaceutical crops that you get you're growing the plants
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  that you think you are Yeah.