The Benefits of Using Wetting Agents for Turf

Sometimes the soil is heavy or the thatch has built up across the turf site. When this happens, it's hard for water to penetrate the surface, often resulting in localized dry spots. To remedy this, a wetting agent is used to reduce water retention at the surface and to maintain optimal moisture levels in the root zone.

What Exactly are Wetting Agents?

Wetting agents are also called surfactants. These substances are used to increase the spreading and penetration of liquids into the soil. They lower the surface tension, making it easier for water, liquid fertilizers, pesticides and other substances to spread over the area and get down to the roots.

Many gardeners use wetting agents for plants to help move water and nutrients into the soil, feeding the plants and helping them to grow stronger and healthier.

Wetting agents are also commonly used on golf courses. They can be used on sod farms, recreational turf and other turfgrass sites to reduce watering needs and to maintain quality turf and plants.

3 Top Wetting Agents for Turf

The following wetting agents can be tank-mixed with a wide variety of turf chemicals and fertilizers, including pesticides. Though they all provide similar benefits, each one contains different active ingredients based on the soil media and target use.

Aquicare® Wetting Agent

Aquicare is a turf and soil wetting agent with all nonplant food ingredients, a 100 percent blend of alkoxylated alcohols. It's a non-phytotoxic wetting agent formulated to prevent and control localized dry spot conditions as well as water-repellent soils. It's the ideal wetting agent used to help maintain turf and avoid turf loss

The formulation reduces water surface tension, optimizing the balance of precipitation and irrigation water with air in the soil. This results in healthy plant growth. Aquicare wetting agent is designed to resist excessive water retention at the soil surface while still maintaining optimum moisture levels in the root zone, which can provide a firmer, healthier playing surface on the golf course and other highly maintained turf sites.

Aquiflo® Plus Wetting Agent

Aquiflo Plus is a soil wetting agent with alcohol ethoxylates and alkyl aryl sulfonate as the active ingredients. It's a multipurpose surfactant that reduces the surface tension of water and helps improve the movement of rainwater and irrigation into the soil. It provides a curative and preventative solution for hydrophobic soils as it reduces the surface tension of water droplets and minimizes soil repellency.

Aquiflo Plus wetting agent is specially formulated for use across all golf course turf. It can also be applied to sod farms, commercial turf and sports turfgrass areas. Doing so will help reduce watering requirements while maintaining quality turf. It's also formulated for use in soilless media and the soils surrounding ornamental plants.

Aquisync® Surfactant

Aquisync is a specially formulated surfactant that reduces the surface tension of water and also improves the retention of water in soils. This results in overall uniform distribution and availability of water, which can lead to a more consistent playing surface and enhanced visual appearance on golf courses, athletic fields and other recreational turf.

In conclusion, all three wetting agents reduce the surface tension of water and make it spread more evenly throughout the soil. The end result is less water requirements, more water to the root zone and healthy, more maintained turf.