Surfactants

Surfactants in agriculture enhance the effectiveness of liquid fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or biostimulants. When added to the nutrient solution, surfactants (short for SURFace ACTing AgeNT) lower the surface tension of the solution, reducing the barrier between the liquid and a gas, another liquid, or a solid.

Why Use Surfactants?

Plants have a natural waxy, protective cuticle that, amongst other things, protects them from pathogens and prevents water loss from the plant. This waxy cuticle, however, can also reduce the effectiveness of foliar products by preventing nutrients and other active ingredients from entering the leaves. While some surfactants damage this waxy cuticle to improve nutrient penetration, ICL’s Fertivant takes a different approach.

Fertivant sticking and spreading effect on MKP crystals on a citrus leaf

What makes Fertivant Unique?

To date, Fertivant is the only system on the market that is specifically engineered for foliar nutrition. It creates a unique ‘coral’ patterned sticking and spreading system over the leaf, which is non-destructive to plant tissue and improves the spreading of the nutrients across the surface and their penetration into the leaf. With a 30-day half-life (T_1/2), Fertivant biodegrades on the leaf surface after use, making it kinder to the plants and to the environment.

Doubling the Nutrient Absorption

Citrus trials tracked the nutrient uptake of MKP foliar applications with and without Fertivant. The researchers used a marked phosphorus isotope ³²P to track its progress through the leaf surface. The trial’s results clearly show that double the phosphorus penetrates the leaf cuticle when Fertivant is used.

Research using marked phosphorus demonstrates that double the phosphorus penetrates the leaf cuticle when Fertivant is used.

Long-Lasting Penetration

Fertivant’s non-destructive mode of action, combined with its other characteristics, delivers Long Lasting Penetration (LLP) to ensure more of the foliar application’s nutrients are conveyed into the plant where they are needed. By facilitating the movement of the product’s active ingredients into the plant tissue, Fertivant surfactant increases the ingredient’s uptake and efficiency.

Where can Fertivant be Used?

Our crop-specific, and wider-use Nutrivant products contain ICL’s Fertivant surfactant. Growers of cereals, fruits, and vegetables can all benefit from the enhanced effectiveness that Fertivant brings to foliar fertilizers, whether they are looking to boost the fruit size of stone fruits, increase the sugar content of sugar beet, increase the size and quality of tomato fruit, or improve the tillering and yield of cereal crops.

You can also find Fertivant in FertiBuzz, ICL’s highly-concentrated fertilizer created and optimized for foliar application by agricultural aircraft and drones.

Explore ICL’s surfactant-containing foliar fertilizers to discover which products contain our unique, non-destructive surfactant designed to enhance the uptake and utilization of foliar nutrients.