by Bill Crabtree, Agronomist
Aquifer soil wetter continues to outperform competitors across multiple WA trial sites, with 2025 response curve data showing consistent results in wheat emergence, NDVI and grain yield. If you’re weighing up your seeding inputs this year, the full data set is worth a close look.
Aquifer Soil Wetter vs SE14 – What the 2025 Trial Data Shows
Back in the 90’s some agronomists examined honest data, saw the benefits of no-till and refused to shut up about it. No-till became the biggest agricultural revolution of our time and WA agriculture has reaped great benefits from its adoption. Imagine farming without it.
Nothing beats a full data set to help inform farmers and agronomists. Data needs to be independently generated and available for public scrutiny. 4Farmers is happy to provide such data on Aquifer.
Here is some data showing wheat emergence, NDVI and grain yield. In this 5th report on Aquifer from the 2025 data, there are response curves and lines of best fit. Notice there are some points that do not fit on the line of best fit. This is not uncommon and why picking various points off a line is dangerous. And why response curves are critical.
Our results show too much Aquifer can reduce peak yield. Too much of a good thing is not always a better thing (just like too much N). The yield graph below shows this. We must compare apples with apples.
It was good to finally see SE14 grain yield data in the Farm Weekly (5th March), but such snippets tell selective bits of the story – note, there were no response curves.
I’m not sure why someone would compare 1.65 L/ha SE14 to 2.77 L/ha Aquifer at Toodyay, then 2.89 L/ha SE14 against 4.83 L/ha of Aquifer at Cadoux. This seems to be selective science and does not benefit the industry. Breakthroughs in agriculture come from unbiased interpretation of honest data. Farmers are not fools and understand marketing tricks.
A farmer at Esperance told me about some trials he had visited last year. Aquifer performed better than SE14 on both plant counts and yield. This is the same result as trials done by SLR in the Avon Valley in both 2020 and 2021. Other agronomists have told me that Aquifer is a standout product across the state, consistently beating SE14 and other products at trials they have seen.
I recently interviewed the inventor of Aquifer, David Seagreen, on a podcast (due out in April), who said that it is virtually impossible to copy. As a result, Aquifer will continue to gain widespread farmer acceptance as the most reliable, affordable and easy to use humectant/wetter. Aquifer: cheaper, better!
Proposed Twin System
Work I did in Esperance in 1989 showed that a wetter-only will wet the soil at low rates of just 200 mL/ha. This was with just 1 mm of rain which aided the uniform movement of water into the topsoil. Here it shows water penetration in 20 minutes whereas the nil treatment had water in the furrow that did not penetrate for 60 minutes.
The wetter-only worked well on shallow south coast duplex soils but it was not so good on deeper sandy loams in Geraldton. The wetter would not encourage the rest of the topsoil to ‘wet up’, and it facilitated nutrient leaching. This is why David Seagreen and Dr Paul Blackwell moved towards a humectant-based wetter.
Now that we understand the benefit of the humectants at drawing water to the seed it makes sense to keep humectants in the seed zone and preferably away from liquid N. Although many farmers are putting UAN or liquid urea with Aquifer with good results, I believe we will get better results if we separate them.
Perhaps applying 200–500 mL/ha of wetter only (no humectant) behind the press wheel to get the water down and to de-fluff the soil made by the knife point is smarter. High rates apparently cause leaching. For those without a twin liquid system then applying Aquifer Sustain as a seed treatment (at 2 L/t) might be a good trick, as Dr Geoff Anderson showed.
Top Dressed N on Sand Gases Off Too Much
A speaker at Crop Updates said up to 50% of top-dressed N can be lost through gassing off – this amount shocked me. When urea does not penetrate a sandy soil due to no rain, made worse by dews and repellent sands, and if 2–3 granules come together, they can easily reach the critical pH of 9.2 that causes ammonia generation and loss. This is why banding N gives better nitrogen use efficiency.
To reduce such losses and ensure reasonable penetration of N, a small dose of wetter behind the press wheel with UAN, or liquid urea as some farmers do in SA, could be a good strategy. Certainly, it is worthy of some trials.
To find out more about Aquifer and whether it is the right fit for your program this season, call the team at 4Farmers on 9356 3445 — we’re happy to talk through the data and discuss application options for your soil type and setup. You can also view the full Aquifer product details at 4farmers.com.au/products/plant-health/aquifer.