- Hey, guys, it's Nate Storey with Bright Agrotech,
and today we're gonna talk about perlite,
what it is, how it works, why you should
or should not be using it in your system.
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So, perlite is volcanic glass.
It's mined, and then they heat it up in a kiln,
which causes it to pop up like popcorn.
And what this does is it makes it really lightweight,
but at the same time, gives it a lot of
air holding capacity.
So when you're mixing it into your mixes,
your soil, you're using it for hydorponic production,
you know that there's gonna be a lot of oxygen
in your root zone.
So perlite's been around for a long time.
At first, they used it for things like insulation,
but more and more people are using it
in horticultural applications,
especially in hydroponic applications.
So it can be a really, really useful hydroponic medium.
It's also really great if you're mixing it into
your seedlings, germination mixes, and production mixes,
when we talk about potting soils, right?
Because it has this great air holding capacity,
so even if you're using coco coir or peat,
or something that compacts or compresses over time,
that perlite mixes in there,
and helps you mix hold a lot more air in the root zone.
So perlite doesn't hold that much water.
That's why we use things like vermiculite
in addition to perlite in our mixes.
However, what it does do is hold air and oxygen
really, really well in the root zone.
So if you're looking for water holding capacity,
perlite probably isn't the thing.
That's one of the reasons why,
when we use it as a hydroponic medium,
we like to irrigate it constantly,
so we're always dripping water through that perlite
to make sure that there's water being supplied
to the plant roots.
So, perlite is not a renewable resource.
There's only so much in the world.
Yes, in theory, in geologic time,
it will be renewable.
But in human time, probably not.
So we have a limited supply,
but the nice thing is, we don't use an awful lot of it,
and it's pretty darn inexpensive.
So, is it a renewable resource?
No.
Is it reusable?
Yeah, usually.
If you're doing hydroponic production,
you can take perlite, and you can reuse it several times.
The only reason you would have to
really get rid of the stuff
is if you have a really bad disease problem,
and you don't have a way to sterilize it.
So the pros of perlite are that it's lightweight,
so it's very, very easy to handle, to use.
It's also great at holding air,
and so, with plants that are really, really sensitive
to anaerobic conditions, or don't like to stay too wet,
it can be a really great medium for those plants.
It's also really inexpensive.
And so, by and large, it makes for a very good additive
to soilous mixes, and a great medium
for hydroponic plant production.
So a couple other pros are that it is sterile,
which is really, really nice.
You don't have to worry about disease organisms
coming in with the medium.
And it's also pH neutral.
So if you've used things like expanded shale,
or rock wool, things that tend to have
a more basic pH, where you have to treat them,
or do something to them in order to make them
acceptable for plant production,
the nice thing about perlite is it comes in,
it's a nice, neutral pH, and will basically...
the pH of the root zone will be
whatever the pH is of the solution
that you're introducing to that root zone.
The cons are that it's pretty granular,
and so if you've got a plant
with really extensive root systems,
it can fill in those gaps pretty quickly,
and it can cause some problems.
It also doesn't handle solids really well,
so if you're loading it with solids from something else,
I wouldn't recommend it.
It also tends to be pretty dusty stuff,
which is one of the reasons you cannot use it
in aquaponic applications.
So if you're an aquaponic producer,
you should not, you cannot be using perlite
in your system.
The dust from it will break up
and irritate your fish's gills.
So, so long as you're being cautious
with the dust, with how you're using it,
it can be a great medium for hydroponic producers.
Yeah, so, with the dust from perlite,
you have to be kind of careful.
It doesn't just make it
something that you shouldn't necessarily
be using in an aquaponic system
because of your fish,
it's also something that you, as a user,
should be really careful of.
I would recommend wearing mask or a respirator
until you get it wet.
So you'll see this stuff in front of me is kinda moist.
Once it's moist, you don't have to
really worry about the dust too much.
However, until it's moist,
you should be a little bit concerned about this dust.
It's not the kind of stuff you wanna be breathing in.
Great, thanks so much for watching.
I hope this answers some really
important questions about perlite,
and what it's useful for.
Again, it's a great medium,
and I highly recommend that folks look into it.
Thanks so much for watching our videos.
As always, feel free to ask questions below,
check out the blog, and please subscribe.
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