Taming Bitterness: How Hydroponics Could Create Milder Veggies

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Hello there, and welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything
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soilless cultivation. I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp.
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Happy New Year! It's 2026, and today's episode, I thought I would revisit or
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do a different take on a topic we did a couple of days ago.
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That was about increasing the flavour of various different crops to make them even more flavoursome.
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And i said that this could be done and this has
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been done by conventional breeding and a mix of environmental
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manipulation but not artificial flavorings in
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a number of crops particularly grapes and strawberries but
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what if you wanted to reduce the flavor in
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a crop that might sound ridiculous but
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there are a number of crops where this has been done successfully and where
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you there is a a business opportunity
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for plant breeders and plant physiologists if you
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can do this in other crops so it's been done in
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brussels sprouts marx and spencers bred a
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brussels sprout that was low in glucosinolates this
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meant that it was low in sulfur and people who
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were predisposed to hate brussels sprouts there's a genetic there's
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a gene involved i believe and it makes them really bitter
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and as you age this this this
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bitterness detection reduces so that's why parents
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get really annoyed at their children for not eating
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brussel sprouts in the uk but they don't understand
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that kids sense brussel sprout taste a lot more my kids don't seem to bother
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they love brussel sprouts they'll eat plates of brussel sprouts so they bred
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a brussel sprout that was low it was a low tasting one for people who didn't
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like brussel The end problem there is that the glucosinolates are the anti-cancer
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compounds, so you don't get as much benefits.
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So what about other crops well there's potential there
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that you could you could well let's
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get back to brussels sprouts another way of reducing the the glucosinolate
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levels is we just reduce the sulfur level in the
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in the grow media now you can't potentially do
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that in soil but in hydroponics you can because you can
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just choose a fertilizer with a low sulfur or develop
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a fertilizer with a low sulfur if you're a commercial brussels sprout
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grower and you'd like a low sulfur fertilizer and then speak to
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us you could do the same with onions i think
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georgia onions grow in low sulfur soil that
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therefore they're sweeter and don't have such a a stringent
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sharp taste so you
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could do the same on onions and brussel sprouts so there's both a genetic and
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a plant breeding and an environmental solution to that problem now in marrows
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you don't call them marrows in america though i think so we call a small zucchini
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a courgette in the uk and a large,
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zucchini is a marrow i don't know if you call them that but basically
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a courgette a small zucchini is nice and tasty
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and you can chop it up and fry it and make it put it in loads of dishes they
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roast it but a marrow you you always roast and it often has a very very bitter
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taste and And that's because the chemical curcubitacin builds up as the plant
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gets older and the tough material gets tougher.
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So potential there for breeding out using low variety curcubitacin or gene suppression
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using CRISPR gene silencing technology to silence the curcubitacin gene.
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So if you don't like marrow, you could have a nice tasting marrow because of that.
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Now, another one, coriander. What do people call coriander in America?
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It's not got the same name as it.
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Is it called cilantro? So cilantro, some people love it.
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I love it. I can't get enough. But other people think it has a soapy taste.
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And that's because there's a gene that some people have or don't have that means
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that they detect it as being soapy.
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That's due to aldehyde compounds. so you could potentially reduce that and have
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a soap-free coriander variety. So that's interesting.
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Other plants, there's a few other plants that have chemicals in them that some
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people find to be bitter.
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Spinach, which contains oxalic acid. It's the stuff that gives you kidney stones.
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Everyone detects that as like a gritty, nasty tasting one.
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So you could potentially have low oxalate lines of spinach, but potentially
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they would then be more prone to pest attack, maybe even disease.
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Eggplants, I didn't know this, but eggplants or aubergines we call it in the
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UK, they could have lower, they have phenolics in it.
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I didn't know this, that some people don't like that, eggplants or aubergine,
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but reduced oxidation could reduce the phenolics.
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So there's some environmental manipulation there that you could do to reduce the oxidation level.
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And then finally, lettuce. Lettuce contains a chemical called lactone.
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I think that's in the white sap that comes out of lettuce when you freshly cut it.
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And you could potentially breed more sweeter varieties and market them for people
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who don't like the bitterness.
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So I think that's really interesting. You could have a gentle flavour line of vegetables,
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low-sulfur Brussels sprouts and onions that have been grown in low-sulfur soil
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and choosing selective lines, sort of like those Georgia onions or the Marks
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and Spencer Brussels sprouts.
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You could have marrows, where they've been gene-suppressed to contain less curcubitcin.
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Coriander, without the aldehydes that form the soapiness.
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Spinach without the oxalic acid which is bitter
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eggplants or aubergines without the phenolics potentially
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by manipulating oxidation levels and then
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by choosing sweet varieties of lettuce you could reduce the lactones that
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often have a bitter taste sometimes you get a
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lettuce and it's really really bitter so there you go
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that's been hydroponics daily the first episode of 2026
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i said i wasn't going to do one every day but i've already thought of a good episode
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for the first day of 2026 if you thought it was
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good then please leave a rated review
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on apple podcasts which helps share the area
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not an apple just make sure you follow the podcast by clicking the plus sign
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or the add sign on your podcast provider and at the very least check out utreema.co.uk
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because we provide amazing unique fertilizers biostimulants and biopesticides
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okay thank you very much for listening until next time goodbye.