Microgreens - Does Adding Nutrients Help!? - Purple Broccoli - On The Grow

so this is when people say that nutrients don't  provide any benefit to microgreens this is why   I disagree how's it going everyone sees you  from on the grill here and today I'm going to   be talking about an experiment that I'm going to  be doing testing out different nutrients versus   just water because there's been some questions  around do nutrients actually provide any benefit   to the growth we've done some of the tests that  I feel like the answer is yes but I figured we'll   go ahead and start doing a few tests to show  how just water compares against adding some   nutrients so let's talk quickly about what we've  got here so we've got four trays of broccoli these   were all started at the same time you can see the  germination is a little mixed here this tray over   here is definitely way behind this was I believe  over watered in the beginning and it suffered   because of that but we're hoping that can catch  up through adding some nutrients so we'll see   about that so every group is gonna be different  so for our best tray over here so the growth is   best on this tray so I'm gonna make this tray our  water group the reason I'm doing that is I want   to give water a little bit of a head start because  I've seen how it performs against nutrients and I   know that nutrients will probably end up passing  this so I'm gonna give it a bit of a head start   here the next tray over is going to be something  new in our space we actually tried basically like   a worm casting tea so what we did is I took 200  grams of worm castings I put it into a mason jar   but added some water shook it up really well let  it sit for a little bit and I poured that into a   strainer and let the juices from it drip into a  reservoir and that reservoir is going to act as   the compost tea for this nutrient solution so this  one again is just worm castings and the growth is   just a little bit behind this I'd say this is  our second best tray so I'm gonna be doing worm   castings on it for our third tray again this  is just a little bit further behind everything   else I'm gonna be doing ocean solution because  ocean solution is something that we've used in   our space a lot I know how to performs I know that  it crushes it and I know that it's going to grow   really well so I'm going to put it at a slight  disadvantage to hopefully let it beat everything   and lastly this is a combination of both ocean  solution and the worm castings in the way that   I did it on the other one which is that 200 grams  put in a mason jar added water stirred up poured   into a strainer filtered through and got all the  juices out of it and so this is a combination of   both that ocean solution and the worm castings  the reason I did on this one is because it's the   furthest behind and I'm hoping for a Hail Mary  play here that perhaps this tray will catch up   somehow to everything else which would be pretty  extraordinary if it did and I think that would be   a pretty solid answer on whether or not nutrients  actually provide any benefits what I'm going to   do now is actually something I wouldn't do if I  was trying to grow this to sell this product is   I'm gonna go ahead and introduce this to the light  and I'm gonna go ahead and add nutrients to all of   these what I would do if I was trying to grow  this to sell it is I would try to get these to   germinate better I'd probably leave them stacked  for another day or to leave some kind of weight   on top but to get this kind of test rolling here  it's already day 5 of this germination process so   I'm gonna go ahead and just toss these straight  into the light on this shelf right here and add   their specified nutrients I will give you guys an  update day-by-day and talk about what's happening   as we go along so stay tuned for that today  is day 14 of our broccoli nutrient test and   as you can see I think that nutrients may play a  factor in the overall growth so let's start with   a comparison so starting over here this is our  water tray remember in the beginning on day 5   of this grow this tray had the best growth this  was ahead of everything and it looked like it   was going to win so here's where it's at today it  looks pretty decent we don't yet have true leaves   the cotyledons are pretty small and it does have  uniform growth and it does look pretty good on to   our second tray this is the worm castings this is  something we've never tried in this space before   and the results are honestly quite comparable  if you look right here you can see that I mean   there's not much difference the cotyledons  are slightly larger on the worm casting one   than it is on just the filtered water so it did  provide a little bit of a benefit it looks like   and remember too that this tray was a little bit  behind on growth compared to the water one so it   looks like it actually caught up and perhaps even  maybe beat it a little bit onto our third tray   which again was behind everything else this is  our ocean solution tray and like I predicted this   just absolutely crushed it now the cada liens  are quite huge they're a little bit lighter in   color that is something I noticed so maybe there  is a slight nutrient deficiency there happening   maybe a little bit more of magnesium or something  like that could help to darken these up a little   bit but for actual growth in size they are quite  huge I mean let's just pull this one out of the   way real quick and set this the way and set our  water tray directly next to our nutrient added   with the ocean solution okay so when people say  that nutrients don't provide any benefit this is   why I disagree I mean as you can see here clearly  this tray whenever we showed it I think that was   about eight days or so ago now was actually quite  a bit behind this tray which was just our filtered   water this one had poor germination and once we  began to add the nutrients these things just came   to life and they begin to grow very aggressively  and grow quite large and they're actually getting   to the true leaf stage first ahead of everything  else so this is why I disagree with people when   they say that nutrients do not provide any kind of  benefit to microgreens that microgreens have all   the nutrients they need I agree yes they they are  able to grow like this Trey was able to grow well   I'm not disagreeing with that it does look nice it  is a nice tray of microgreens but if I'm trying to   get to a larger crop quicker I'm going to add  nutrients because it does provide benefit from   all the tests that we've run I mean it obviously  depends on what kind of nutrient you're using as   you can see in this test there was kind of mixed  results with our worm castings maybe we didn't   do it correctly maybe we didn't allow enough time  for beneficial bacteria to become developed and B   create an organic little nutrient system there's  a lot of things that could have happened with the   worm castings but as for a nutrient that we've  tested quite a few times on quite a few different   varieties this is showing to just absolutely crush  just regular filtered water so let me go ahead and   set this over get our tray back here and then if  you guys will remember our last tray was the one   that was furthest behind and honestly I didn't  think it was gonna do too well because it was   pretty terrible but it has caught up quite a bit  and I'm actually curious to see if it is going to   be able to beat the harvest weight on our just  only water tray remember this tray right here   on the end had both worm castings and the ocean  solution and I think it's the ocean solution that   really helped this thing I get these cuddling's  that are quite large and something I did notice   too with the worm castings if you come close  is that the everything is a little bit darker   of a green compared to just the ocean solution so  maybe there's something there too combining these   two for a little bit more coloration a little  bit more nutrients so that definitely has me   questioning can we add something else to ocean  solution to really make it more deeper deeper   in colors richer in colors and provide prettier  hues because that is something we noticed with   ocean solution while it does provide this like  amazingly aggressive growth sometimes we begin   to see fade of the colors we're not seeing the  beautiful coloration that we love so a lot of   information but I think that this is a very good  start to show that adding nutrients does provide   a benefit so I'm gonna go ahead and get all these  harvested will compare weights we'll talk about   what worked and what did not work so I'll see you  here in just a moment so it's spinach harvesting   all four of these trays and I'm getting the  giggles because we just did a very bad take   but it's so for our harvest weights we're gonna  start in the order that we did this so for our   I'm pretending our imaginary trays are here for  our h2o group just the plain filtered water we   had a total harvest weight of 258 grams again this  was only filtered water throughout the entire grow   process from start to finish for our next group  which would have been our worm castings it was   our second tray that was a total harvest weight  of 253 grams so now remember that one was a little   bit behind in growth originally so seeing it only  5 grams behind is pretty great I did have great   coloration on it as well for our third tray the  ocean solution what do you think the way it was   do you think I doubled it tripled it for Drupal  dit 10 times the amount of water well it was   nearly double the water group so it's 433 total  grams for the harvest weight on the ocean solution   and then for our last one which again was just  terrible I can't believe it actually made it as   far as it did because it germinated so poorly it  was at 262 grams so our last tray with the ocean   solution and the worm casting nutrients actually  ended up beating our very first trade the one that   had the most the biggest head start on growth this  was our water group they ended up beating it by   about only 4 grams but still considering the fact  that it was about 5 days behind on growth is quite   impressive and it did have some great coloration  on it so let's talk about what the actual product   looked like and tastes like so the first these  are again in the same order of all the trays   this is our water group so I mean it was honestly  pretty good the cotyledons are a little small the   coloration we got a little bit of the purple in  the stems that you get from broccoli and overall   it was just pretty average for our next one we  actually had a great beautiful purple coloration   that we noticed especially underneath the leaves  like you can see on this one here this just like   super deep purple that happens underneath the  leaves that was from the worm compost group for   our third one this is the ocean solution it did  not have as much beautiful coloration in the stems   and you can see a little bit down here at the  bottom and there were a few that did have some   of the purpling underneath the leaves but overall  it was a lot more muted than all the other colors   but it did have the largest cotyledon size of  anything in the group and the tallest growth   which made it super easy to harvest and then for  our last one as you can see it was all over the   place there was some short ones some tall ones but  the cool thing is we did get some cool coloration   I believe from that worm castings underneath the  stems or the leaves rather the cotyledons I mean   just look at that deep purple underneath that  cotyledon can you guys see that pretty good or   it had some beautiful coloration and that was  the group that had both the ocean solution and   the worm compost so what worked and what didn't  work so honestly everything worked in this test   the cool thing about water is yes it does provide  good growth but we find that you can just get   better growth through adding nutrients and there's  honestly so many different types of nutrients that   you can add that you can really create whatever  kind of product that you want to create there's   so many different ways to get different types of  coloration and tastes all within these different   greens just because it's broccoli doesn't mean  it's always gonna have the same exact appearance   in the same exact taste whenever you grow it with  different nutrients there's so many things that   can be affected by that and also how you germinate  them and how you control your climate there's just   a lot of different things you can do to affect  your crop and adding nutrients is one of those   so does nutrient affect growth I would have to  say via this test even though it was just oh Sh   in solution that really showed that it crushed  it I would say yes what we'll be doing now is   I'm going to start some more tests with some other  nutrients that I know are a lot stronger I'm going   to do oh Sh in solution again because it just  does amazing we're also gonna bring back some   maxi Gro that's something that we use in the past  it's a much stronger formula and it's actually a   synthetic so it's not an organic one but it still  provides great growth and great taste and then for   the last one it's something I can bring back  farmers pride I haven't done farmers pride in   a long time that was something that we used to  love using on our adult crops when we used to   grow them out when we lived in East Texas we still  grow a lot of collards and bangs and that was our   hydroponic nutrients that in maxy grow both just  do really really well so what I'm gonna do is I'm   gonna begun another test I'm probably start this  after the holidays over though so probably the   first of the new year because right now we're  kind of winding down we're gonna go spend a   few days with family and you know this has been  a lot of work doing everything that we've done   so we're just gonna take a little bit of a break  for a few days so those tests will begin as soon   as this new year begins as well so I hope that  you guys enjoyed this video if you did please   give us a thumbs up if you disliked it give us a  thumbs down if you have any questions or comments   please leave them in the section below and we'd  love to get those answer for you as soon as   we possibly can if you would like to subscribe  the button is right over here at some point so   please click that if you would like to see more  experiments like forgot what I was saying but   we're gonna leave it and then lastly our Instagram  and our Facebook are both @onthegrowfarms so you   can see us there for fun content thanks  so much and have a great day [Music]

Channel: On The Grow

Views: 76,131

Keywords: Microgreens, Microgreen, Urban Farming, How to grow microgreens, Agriculture, Indoor, On the grow, Microgreens at home, Microgreens growing, Microgreens business, Microgreens farm, Microgreens Tutorial, Microgreens Growing Tutorial, How to grow microgreens from start to finish, How to grow microgreens indoors, How to grow microgreens at home, Sprouting trays for microgreens, Sprouting microgreens at home, Microgreens experiment, Microgreen nutrients, Hydroponic microgreens

Id: R5kPPW2D_Ic

Length: 14min 12sec (852 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019