In 2009, Renewable Farming LLC was the first to document how the colloidal micelle technology of WakeUP enhances foliar-sprayed nutrient absorption and translocation.
Renewable Farming has proven this with hundreds of tissue tests and yield checks the past 10 years. Based on field research, we’ve built two unique formulations: WakeUP Spring accelerates root growth, and WakeUP Summer helps crops absorb and mobilize foliar-applied nutrients. Both are equally effective in dropping surface tension of water. Spring lasts a little longer within the crop’s phloem system, making photosynthetic sugars easier to pump into roots and growing points.
In general, if a foliar or in-furrow nutrient mix delivers a 5-bu. yield response when sprayed alone, WakeUP in the tank mix bumps the yield response by another 4 bu., or about 80%. Here’s why WakeUP formulations work effectively for you:
1. Wetting: The typical surface tension of a water and nutrient spray solution is around 72 dynes. WakeUP Summer drops that surface tension to about 30. This “super wet” spray solution has a lower surface tension than the leaf — even waxy leaves. So the spray clear-coats the entire leaf surface, wherever a droplet hits. Water and nutrients penetrate into each cell. Even if the plant has some moisture stress, it can still absorb and metabolize nutrients which it cannot extract from the soil.
2. Penetrating: Colloidal micelles in both WakeUP products link water and hydrocarbons. WakeUP Summer temporarily softens the waxy outer cuticle of the leaf, allowing more rapid absorption of nutrients into the underlying palisade cells, where metabolism occurs. Even on a wet, cool morning with dew on soybean leaves, leaves will appear dry about 20 minutes after spraying — not because moisture has evaporated, but because it has been absorbed.
3. Chelating: WakeUP’s colloidal micelles have negative exteriors linking to nutrient elements like zinc or phosphorus – whatever is in the foliar nutrient solution. When wakeUP moves into the plant cell, it carries nutrients with it.
The pharmaceutical industry has launched a major research effort underway to learn how to use these nano-micelles to chelate drug molecules and help move them into body cells. One of the most reactive ingredients in WakeUP is a sugar-based chelating agent in the glucoheptonate family of chelators.
4. Sugar and nutrient mobilization: When WakeUP enters leaf cells, it reduces surface tension of the sugar-rich plant sap. This nutrient solution becomes easier to “pump” from leaves to roots or new growing points. This saves energy, and keeps sugars flowing freely out of leaves.
More sugar flows to roots, where about 30% of it is exuded into soil. Extra sugars and other nutrients create a microbial “bloom” which converts more soil nutrients to plant-available forms. That causes much larger rooting, with abundant mycorrhizal activity, when WakeUP is sprayed at the V2 to V4 stage.
5. Spray drift reduction: Our farmer clients find that they can use a coarse droplet and get excellent clear-coat coverage. Laced with WakeUP, a big drop hitting a leaf spreads and clear-coats the leaf. By using larger droplets instead of a mist, a farmer can reduce drift and evaporation. Without WakeUP, even the finest mist will form droplets on the “fuzzy” points of a leaf. These droplets evaporate without penetrating.
6. Ease of handling: WakeUP is non-toxic, unlike some ag surfactants and “stickers.” The same WakeUP Summer concentrate you put in your sprayer tank can also be used in the kitchen, to cleanse vegetables before juicing. We dilute it and wash our hands, and dishes with it too.
7. Sprayer cleaning: WakeUP is based on proven principles of colloidal micelle cleansing technology. Farmers tell us that adding a little WakeUP “just makes sprays lay down so nice, and keeps the whole system really clean.” With WakeUP to clean the sprayer system when you change chemicals, there’s virtually no residual picked up by the next formulation.