Growing the Impossible: Hydroponic Crops the UK Can't Grow Outdoors

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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 on a previous episode we talked about
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sweet potato and how it would be a good crop to start off in hydroponics,
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and how there could be a nice little business there growing what's called slips,
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young sweet potato plants, through the winter in the UK,
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so that you could supply them to UK home gardeners and even conventional large-scale
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farmers in the spring because the growing season just isn't long enough to grow
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sweet potatoes in the UK. The,
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last spring for frost and the first autumn frost is they're too close together
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and so i thought i'd look at other crops that can't be grown in the uk not because
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this simply is you know uh.
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The perennial crops and the and the it's too cold
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in the in the winter like you know bananas there
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must be other crops there that can't grow
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because of the number of frost-free days required for
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it to produce a mature crop and quite a
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few and cotton is one of them obviously cotton
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needs very long hot frost free conditions so it's never
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going to be even if there was frost free days
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for long enough it's still not going to be a crop for the uk it's more
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for like central asia and places like that in america but interestingly
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they are growing cotton in the university of
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north nottingham for looking at
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hydroponic cotton jute and canaf
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they're another fiber crop from the tropical hibiscus
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genus and they require sustained warmth
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and long days and you're not going to get them a fiber
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crop out of them you might get an ornamental plant but that's about it and
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castor bean castor oil technically an
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annual bred for hot climates in most of
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the uk can grow and it's very very popular
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as a bedding plant as a central plant in bedding you'll
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see that lots of councils use that but you won't get a crop
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out of it now other crops you
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might think can be grown like sweet corn
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and popcorn most of those varieties are just the there's just not enough frost
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free days and heat units accumulated heat units through the summer to grow really.
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High quality sweet corn and popcorn you can get some sweet corn varieties that
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will grow in the uk so perhaps.
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Popcorn for the uk could be grown hydroponically and
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other countries where you have like canada where you've got maybe not
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a long growing season soybean so
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in america you think they think this is crazy but standard soya
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needs a long hot summer and in
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the uk it's just been found three trials to be too
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cold for soya to grow well outside there was a company
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that was trying to commercialize soya growing in the uk but
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that's i've not seen them for a long time and soya
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is probably because it's a staple food it's probably
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not going to be one for hydroponics so i
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would avoid that one interesting one is rice
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and there are traditionally rice would
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need warm temperatures in a long growing period but with climate change there
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are some cold tolerant varieties probably like japanese northern chinese varieties
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and they are being trialed in the uk so traditionally you would say rice can't
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be grown and you know if you wanted to grow you'd have to go hydroponically indoors in a grow room.
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But they are trialing it in Lincolnshire, in the fens, which traditionally would be waterlogged.
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Almost you know swamp not swamp because it's
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alkaline swamp is acidic isn't it because fen
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is alkaline and so you've got this natural boggy i want to say boggy it's not
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even a bog is it bog is acidic fenny conditions of water naturally waterlogged
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soil it could potentially be used for growing risotto sushi or even what was
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the other variety they were going to trial.
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Basmati there you go i carefully avoided an
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indian accent as i said that so yeah and
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they thought that potentially growing this rice in these sorts
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of conditions means that the you could then re-submerge drained
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fenland and sort of carbon capture so that's interesting not hydroponic but
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very interesting peanuts we've talked about peanuts in the past and how to grow
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peanuts and whether they could be grown hydroponically they need about four
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to five months of warm weather in the uk you're going to need a grow room or
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a greenhouse or a conservatory to do that.
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So as i said that could be an interesting a interesting hydroponic crop to grow in the uk,
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uk growing peanuts i would probably do sweet potatoes first
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but there you go and then there's the crops that
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you really need a greenhouse or a polytunnel for in the uk and you
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need heating to get them going things like melons melons
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will not thrive outside in the uk you might be able to
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get a plant to survive but it won't thrive
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and it certainly won't produce a very sweet crop
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watermelons in particular need a long season of
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heat and sunshine so they would be a you'd
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be a fool to grow them in the uk without a grow
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room and hydroponics and then the same for long season
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chilies you know the really hot chilies that take a long time to mature and
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aubergines eggplants as you call them in the usa aubergines eggplants they just
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do not grow well even in a greenhouse in the uk we need a short season early
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varieties so we normally import them but they would be a.
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Then some crops, sort of like really marginal outdoor crops,
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need warm microclimates.
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So Adami, Adami, soya beans, they really, if you're going to grow them outdoors,
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you need a short season variety, probably not as good.
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So if you wanted to grow a really high quality variety, then perhaps hydroponics is the way forward.
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And as I said, things like sweet corn and popcorn, you'd be the same.
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So obviously there's a big caveat there because climate
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change is making summers warmer but also
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reducing the making the first the
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last spring frost earlier and the first
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autumn frost later so potentially
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there could be crops that are only grown hydroponically could
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actually go the other way so we could think of crops that were hydroponic
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could actually be grown outdoors in the uk whether that's
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growing crops or greenhouse polytronal crops so an
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interesting one for today crops that can't be grown in the uk currently because
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they are because of the seasonal conditions you could apply this to many other
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countries with a similar climate to the uk as i say certain parts of canada
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where else maybe around new york parts of russia down by japan certainly parts of japan,
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and then places like argentina and things like that all right thank you very
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much for listening for today that's been hydroponics daily if you thought this
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was interesting then please leave a apple podcast review make sure you click
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