One of the most widely tested plant growth stimulators in agriculture is Vitazyme distributed by the company VitalEarth Resources.
So naturally, when we see something which enhances both yields and quality, we want to test whether WakeUP can enhance its performance another notch.
We foliar sprayed one treatment of Vitazyme alone on soybeans, and one treatment of Vitazyme tank-mixed with WakeUP Summer to test for synergism. The yield increase with Vitazyme alone: 5.1 bushels. When WakeUP Summer was added in the tank mix, the yield gain jumped to 7.2 bushels.
Vitazyme, with or without WakeUP, also edged up the test weight by a half-pound per bushel. This is characteristic of Vitazyme, which has a record of improving nutrient density of crops.
Our experience since 2008 has been that if a foliar nutrient bumps up bean yields by, say, 5 bushels, then adding WakeUP Summer enhances the nutrient product’s effectiveness and adds another 4 bushels for a total of 9 bushels.
How a crop responds to a foliar nutrient greatly depends on the crop’s needs at application time. That’s why we urge sap testing, or at least tissue testing and regular crop scouting.
However, Vitazyme is not formulated as an NPK or trace element nutrient. It’s a growth promoting product with an array of enzymes and other stimulants. You can download a PDF of the plot data on our field trial with Vitazyme at this link. We had five replications of each treatment, plus six control replications. Our standard is to have at least as many control reps as in any treatment, interspersing them randomly. We use strips across a test field, rather than small plots.
Vitazyme’s research record is available at the VitalEarth link above. Look for “Soybeans” in the long list of research data, and you can open a very extensive series of field studies. One of the most interesting studies was at the ACRES research farm, a neighbor of ours at Cedar Falls, where we’ve contracted several times with Dr. Bertel Schou for field trials.
In 2014, the ACRES trial with Vitazyme as a foliar, applied on soybeans two times, generated a 13-bu. yield gain.
We were assisted in our field trial by Paul Syltie, who works with VitalEarth. Paul also gave us the privilege this summer of showing some Ukranian visitors around the farm owned by one of our WakeUP clients, the Pitzenberger family of Greene, IA
Paul Syltie is the author of several books. Our favorite among them is “How Soils Work,” available on Amazon at this link.
