1. Gives you glossy leaf coverage with foliar sprays — By dropping the surface tension of a spray solution from around 72 dynes to about 32, the spray solution has a lower surface tension than the leaf — even waxy or fuzzy leaves. So the spray solution clear-coats, and hugs, the entire leaf surface. Spray moisture migrates through each cell it contacts, not just the stomata. Even if the plant has some moisture stress, it can still absorb and metabolize nutrients which it isn’t extracting from the soil.
2. Opens leaf surfaces for quick spray penetration. Colloidal micelles in spray solutions with WakeUP Summer temporarily soften the waxy cuticle of the leaf, allowing 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. WakeUP Summer spreads out the dew and uses it as a carrier for your foliar nutrients or crop protection products. Ordinary surfactants, or “stickers” such as crop oil may hold nutrients and chemicals on the leaf surface, but WakeUP enhances quick translocation into the leaf where it’s needed.
3. Carries the nutrients or chemicals you want to deliver. WakeUP Summer creates billions of colloidal micelles — tiny spheres of about 100 water molecules around one WakeUP colloid. Exteriors of these micelles carry a slight negative charge. They repel each other, so water spreads out on a leaf instead of forming droplets. However, the micelles bond lightly with positively nutrient elements like zinc, phosphorus, or whatever hydrocarbon is in the the foliar product you want to deliver. When water moves into the leaf, the bonded nutrient goes with it. In general, if a crop shows a yield response to nutrient application, such as trace elements, including WakeUP Summer in the tank mix bumps that response by about 80%.
4. Speeds translocation of your spray solution through the plant’s phloem circulation system. When WakeUP micelles carrying spray solutions move into plant circulation, they reduce the stickiness of plant sap. That makes a nutrient solution or systemic herbicide easier to “pump” from leaves to roots or new growing points. This saves energy, and keeps sugars flowing freely out of leaves so photosynthesis can keep manufacturing sugars at peak efficiency. When WakeUP alone is sprayed on corn at the two to three leaf stage, sugars and other nutrients flow more quickly to roots. Sugar levels in roots nearly double in two days, which triggers intense mycorrhizal bloom that enhances nutrient and moisture uptake.
5. Helps you cut spray drift and evaporation. Our growers find that with WakeUP Summer in the solution they can use nozzles with a medium to coarse droplet size, and get excellent clear-coat coverage of leaves. Laced with WakeUP, a big drop hitting a leaf spreads out across the leaf in a thin coating. It does not form a rounded droplet. Thus, by using larger droplets, a farmer can reduce drift and evaporation. Drift reduction is especially critical with today’s powerful weedkillers.
6. Cleans your sprayer, and helps keep it clean. WakeUP is closely related to the general principles of colloidal micelle cleansing technology which is widely used in industries for cleaning surfaces. Farmers tell us that adding a little WakeUP Summer every time they take a sprayer to the field “keeps the whole system really clean.” We also recommend a stronger rate of WakeUP Summer specifically for sprayer cleanout, to etch out residues from hoses, filters, pumps and tiny crevices.
7. Safe to handle. Unlike many ordinary ag surfactants, WakeUP is as safe to use as a liquid household soap. In fact, we use WakeUP Summer to cleanse vegetables before juicing. We have pump bottles of WakeUP Summer at every sink in the house, plus spray bottles with 1:50 solutions of WakeUP and water for cleaning countertops, bathrooms and other surfaces.