Trial protocols for BountiGel P

The sack contains 10 kg of BountiGel P. It is a fine white powder, a potassium polyacrylate, and it absorbs many times its own weight in water and releases it back to roots as the medium dries. It is not a fertiliser and it is not a wetting agent.

Handling

• Fine powder. Airborne dust can form an explosive dust-air mixture. Work in a ventilated space, not in front of a fan or a blower.
• Dust mask and eye protection when weighing and when charging a mixer.
• Wetted powder on a hard floor is extremely slippery. Sweep spills dry, do not hose them.
• Store dry, in the original sack, closed. It takes up moisture from humid air and cakes.

Water check, thirty minutes, before anything else

Capacity depends on your water, and nobody can tell you your number from another country. Do this first.

1. Weigh 1.0 g of powder into each of two jars.
2. Jar A: 500 ml demineralised water, sold as battery water or iron water. Jar B: 500 ml of the water you actually irrigate with, made up to your normal feed strength if you fertigate.
3. Stir once. Leave one hour.
4. Pour each through a strainer you have weighed empty. Drain exactly ten minutes. Weigh the gel.

Grams of gel per gram of powder is your capacity. Jar A is the figure suppliers quote. Jar B is the figure you will get. Expect B to be substantially lower than A, commonly by around fivefold in hard water or at normal feed strength, because dissolved calcium and magnesium collapse the polymer network. This is chemistry, not a defect, and it is why the rate below is expressed per litre of medium rather than per plant.

The rate

Applies to peat, coir, composted bark, rice husk, sand blends and field soil alike. The rate is per litre of medium, not per pot, and it does not change with container size. It is the lowest rate on the manufacturer's label, which is deliberate: a trial should establish whether the lowest useful dose works, not whether the highest one does.

What 10 kg treats	At 0.6 g per litre
Finished substrate	16.6 m³
Plug cells, 85 cm³	approx. 195,000
Pots, 3 litre	approx. 5,500
Planting pits at 30 g each	approx. 330 trees
Field transplant slurry	approx. 0.9 ha

Rule one: nutrition must be identical in both blocks

This is the rule that ruins trials. Treated medium holds water longer, so the treated block gets watered less often. If your fertiliser arrives through the irrigation, the treated block is also fed less often, and by the end of the cycle it has received a third less nutrient than the control. Your treated plants finish smaller and the trial appears to show that the product stunts crops.

Incorporate a controlled-release fertiliser at your standard rate into both batches, and irrigate the trial with plain water. Nutrition is then identical by construction and the only variable left is water, which is the thing you are testing.

If your site cannot run without fertigation, the second-best option is to raise the concentration in the treated block so the total grams of fertiliser delivered over the whole cycle match the control. Keep a log. It is more work and it is less clean, but it is honest. What you must not do is run both blocks off the same tank at the same concentration on different watering frequencies.

Rule two: the two blocks must be irrigated independently

Treated and untreated under the same boom receive the same water whether they need it or not. That tells you how wet the medium stays. It does not tell you how many waterings you saved, which is the number worth money.

Water each block only when that block needs it, and trigger on weight rather than judgement. Mark three trays or pots per block. Weigh them at container capacity, immediately after a full watering has drained, and write that weight down. Water again when they reach 70 per cent of it. Same threshold in both blocks, every time.

Randomisation

Three treated units and three untreated units, alternating, never one big treated block at one end of the house. Benches, beds and field blocks all vary, and a single pair cannot separate the treatment from the position.

Mark them physically and on a plan. A trial outlives the memory of whoever laid it out.

The question this trial answersHow many irrigation events do I save over one propagation cycle, at equal or better plant quality?

Dose per batch

Multiply the volume of finished medium in the batch by 0.6 g per litre. A 2 m³ mixer load takes 1.2 kg. Weigh it, do not scoop it.

Mixing

1. Load the mixer with dry medium as normal. The medium should be as dry as your process allows when the powder goes in.
2. With the mixer running, spread the weighed powder across the full width of the drum. Do not tip it in one place. Powder tipped in a heap sits in white patches and blends unevenly, which means part of your trial runs at double rate and part at nothing.
3. Blend dry for three minutes.
4. Add water and wet to your normal moisture. Blend three minutes more.
5. Fill trays or pots as usual. The medium feels slightly heavier when wetted. Check tray fill weight and adjust the filler if it has drifted.

Run the untreated batch through the same mixer first, or clean it down between batches, so the control is genuinely untreated.

Layout

Three treated groups and three untreated groups, alternating along the bench, same light, same boom position, same sowing or sticking date, same species and seed lot. Minimum of one full tray per group, more if you have room.

Irrigation

Independent watering by block, triggered at 70 per cent of container capacity weight as set out in Section 0. Record every irrigation event: date, block, and volume applied if you can meter it.

What to record

Measure	When	Why it matters
Irrigation events per block	Every watering	The primary result. This is labour, water and pumping cost.
Days between waterings	Every watering	Shows whether the effect holds as the crop grows.
Height and stem calliper	Start, mid, end	Proves the treated block is not simply underfed.
Root ball integrity at pulling	End of cycle	Score 0 to 3. Falls apart, loose, holds, holds well.
Losses in the 14 days after dispatch	Post-dispatch	Where the money actually is, if your customers report back.

Duration

One full propagation cycle, from sowing or sticking to dispatch.

The question this trial answersWhat percentage of my planted seedlings survive the first dry season, and how many do I go back and plant twice?

Two stages, and you can run either one alone. Species is immaterial. Conifer, broadleaf, eucalypt, fruit rootstock or native shrub, the mechanism is the same.

Stage A, in the nursery

Follow Protocol 1 exactly. Same rate, same mixing, same controls. Record irrigation events and root ball integrity at lifting, which for this crop is the measure that predicts what happens after the seedling leaves you.

Stage B, at planting out

1. Open the notch or pit as normal.
2. Place half the dose in the bottom of the hole, set the plant, backfill, and mix the remaining half through the backfill as it goes in.
3. Do not lay it as a continuous layer directly beneath the root ball. It must be mixed through the soil that roots will grow into, not form a mat they sit on.
4. Water in exactly as you normally would, both treated and untreated.

Layout

Three treated plots of 100 seedlings and three untreated plots of 100, paired and alternating, on the same aspect and the same soil type. That is 300 treated seedlings and 9 kg of the sack, which leaves a kilo for the water check and for spillage.

Site it on your worst ground. The driest, the most free-draining, the block you expect to lose. A treatment that only performs on good ground has told you nothing you can act on.

Flag every plot, photograph the flags, and mark the plots on the block map. Twelve months is long enough for the person who laid the trial out to have moved on.

What to record

Measure	When	Why it matters
Survival per plot	End of first dry season	The primary result. Count, do not estimate.
Replant or beating-up count	At the replant round	Record separately from survival. This is the invoice.
Replant cost	At the replant round	Labour hours plus plant cost, per plot. Converts the trial into money.
Height increment	End of first season	Sample 20 plants per plot, not all 100.
Rainfall or irrigation	Monthly	A wet season produces no difference, and that is not a failure, it is a season you cannot read.

Duration

One nursery cycle plus one dry season in the field.

The question this trial answersHow many establishment waterings can I drop, and what does my twelve-month failure rate do?

For contractors and estates planting standards, whips and orchard stock into pits. This is the application where the dose per plant is largest and the water bill is a line item somebody already argues about.

Method

1. Excavate the pit as normal.
2. Mix the dose thoroughly through the backfill soil, on a sheet or in a barrow, before it goes back in the hole. Not layered, not dumped in the base.
3. Plant, backfill, firm, and water in identically across treated and untreated.
4. Stake, mulch and guard both blocks the same way. Any difference in aftercare invalidates the comparison.

Layout

Alternate groups of ten along a row, or alternate whole rows in an orchard, three treated groups and three untreated. Same species, same nursery batch, same delivery, same planting week.

Watering during establishment

This is where the result is. Water each group only when it needs it, judged the same way in both, and log every visit. If you water on a fixed schedule regardless, you will measure nothing except soil moisture, and you will have spent a season doing it.

What to record

Measure	When	Why it matters
Watering visits and litres per group	Every visit	The primary result. Bowser hours and labour.
Survival	Month 3, 6, 12	Twelve months is when a defects liability period bites.
Failures replaced, and cost	At replacement	Tree, labour and revisit, per group.
Trunk calliper and extension growth	Month 12	Distinguishes survived from established.

Duration

Twelve months, through one full summer.

The question this trial answersHow many plants do I have to set twice, and how many hours of replant labour does that cost me?

Application by slurry, through the transplant water

1. Fill the tank and start the agitator before adding anything.
2. Add the powder slowly into the moving water. Adding it fast makes lumps that never disperse and then block everything downstream.
3. Agitate until evenly dispersed and use within 48 hours.
4. Remove particle filters from the applicator before use. Swollen gel will clog them. This is the single most common reason a slurry application goes wrong on the first day.
5. Deliver in the transplant water at setting out, into the root zone. Keep the starter fertiliser dose exactly as you normally run it, in both treated and untreated.

Where no water applicator is available

Dry powder into the transplant hole, in proximity to the root zone, at the same total rate per hectare. Slower, and less even, but it works.

Layout

Six plots, four rows by 30 m each, three treated and three untreated, randomised across three blocks of the field. Same transplant date, same seedling batch, same irrigation.

Put the trial on your driest block or your lightest soil. Not the headland, which is compacted and will confuse the result.

What to record

Measure	When	Why it matters
Survival count per plot	Day 14 and day 28	Count a fixed length of row, the same length every time.
Replant count and labour hours	At the replant round	Log separately from survival. Replant labour moves before yield does, and it is the cost a contract manager already tracks.
Days to first reaping or first pick	At harvest	Earliness is often worth more than tonnage.
Yield per plot	At harvest	Weigh the plot, do not scale up from a sample.
Irrigation applied	Every event	If the season is wet, say so in the report.

Duration

One season, transplant to harvest.

The question this trial answersDo I hold grade and vase life at fewer irrigations, and does the treated crop arrive rated higher at the far end?

Grade at arrival is where the price is set in this crop, so it is the measure that carries the result. Container-grown ornamentals follow Protocol 1. Bed-grown cut flowers follow the method below.

Bed incorporation, in the planting band only

Broadcasting across a whole bed treats soil that no root will reach for weeks. Band it into the row instead.

1. Open the band or bed to planting depth.
2. Spread the weighed dose along the band and incorporate it through the loose soil with a rake or a rotary hoe pass, so it is mixed rather than layered.
3. Plant and irrigate in as normal.

If your soil volume differs, work it out from the rate: 0.6 g for every litre of soil you are actually treating.

Layout

Three treated bed sections and three untreated, alternating along the same irrigation line, same cultivar, same planting date. Fit a separate meter or a simple inline counter to each section if you possibly can. Water applied per section is the cleanest number you will get out of this trial.

What to record

Measure	When	Why it matters
Irrigation volume per section	Every event	Primary result where water is metered or scarce.
Stems per square metre	Each flush	Count the same area every time.
Stem length grade	At packing	Grade distribution, not average length.
Grade or rating on arrival	At the receiving end	The number that changes your price. Get it in writing from the buyer if you can.
Vase life	Sample from each section	Ten stems per section, same room, same water.

Duration

One flush cycle, minimum. Two is better.

The result is yours whatever it says, and you are under no obligation to send it to us. If you do, we will publish it as you wrote it, including the trials where nothing happened, because a protocol library with no negative results in it is advertising.

Photographs

Fixed positions, marked, same height and angle every time. One frame that includes a treated and an untreated plot together is worth more than twenty of either alone. Put a dated board in the frame.

Order

Claim the free 10 kg pack

Ten kilos is deliberately small. Enough to run a properly replicated trial against an untreated control, not enough to change how you operate. The pack costs nothing. You cover the FedEx from Georgia, USA, door to door, and we book the collection and handle the paperwork, so all you send us is a delivery address.