Big Benefits Reported: Dr. Willard’s Water On Lawns, Gardens, & Crops

Nothing we are aware of is more effective or cost-effective for any kind of growing plants, lawns, gardens, crops, etc., than our/your old friend, DR. WILLARD’S WATER (or just "WW"). Specifically, the ULTIMATE Dark version is what we have seen used 100% of the time for all such uses since the mid-1980s. So when we refer to the mixing directions in this article, we are always assuming it is the ULTIMATE Dark version being used for these purposes. So, in this case when we shorten it to just WW, we are still meaning the ULTIMATE Dark WW.

People who have seen it perform can’t believe that it simply isn’t automatically used, every year, by all farmers/gardeners/nurseries/etc. “Why aren’t they using it?”, they ask.

We try to explain that such people are often quite careful in adopting some new technique or product, particularly if it is difficult to understand and it isn’t advocated by the ag colleges, the chemical companies, their lenders, or the Extension people, etc.

Worse, the relatively few individuals within such groups who ARE open to such things, are well-known in their local areas, so they have long been hounded by a host of well-meaning folks offering every novel thing under the sun. So those few are possibly even a “harder sell”, than their conventional brethren. So, long ago we concluded that we didn’t have nearly the resources to pursue that particular market. But, as someone who grew up on an Iowa farm, I (Charlie) find that semi-painful. I know that it would be so beneficial to farmers, that I feel like something of a traitor, in not promoting it to them. But we can only do what we can do, and getting it to individuals for their own health benefits is even more important, or so it would seem.

WHAT DOES IT DO FOR A GROWING PLANT?

Well, just about everything.. .folks who use it see more luxuriant growth, better resistance to drought and other stresses, healthier plants, more productive plants, etc. And it is extremely easy to use. For example, on house plants. First, it is, as with any plant application, almost impossible to “use it wrong”. What we do here in our office is add 1/2 tsp. of concentrate to each gallon of water that we use on the house plants here. And that is what they are watered with all the time. A person could certainly get by with even less . . Mix it even “weaker”, or use the WW in the water only every second or third watering. But we can certainly testify that what we have been doing has given us very exceptional plants.

We’ve long maintained that indeed, you couldn’t mess it up, when giving WW to a plant . . No apparent way to hurt the plant. Just to prove that to myself, I watered an African Violet for a YEAR, with the same solution we DRINK . .an ounce to a gallon . . .obviously, MANY times the amount of WW needed.

Did it hurt the plant? Hardly. Grew like crazy . . Huge amount of stems and leaves. Did NOT ever slow down to make any blossoms, but it certainly grew. That was mixing it twelve times as “strong” as we normally use the WW here on plants. And what we normally use is doubtless many times stronger than what we COULD use and still have great benefit to the plants.

WHAT ABOUT GARDENS, LAWNS, TREES, SHRUBS, ETC.?

You COULD use that same 1/2 tsp. per gallon of water that we refer to above, which means a quart of ULTIMATE Dark WW concentrate will treat a great many growing plants. However, farmers typically use an ounce of concentrate per ACRE (about 44,000 square feet) on typical field crops, and apply that only once or twice during the growing season.

When you reduce that to the proportionate amount that would then be required for a small garden, it just gets ridiculously small. If it were my garden, I’d probably use that 1/2 tsp. to a gallon dilution and apply that on perhaps every second or third watering. Really doesn’t matter how much you dilute it—you are simply trying to get so much of the concentrate on a certain amount of plants.

For example, the farmer spraying it on the foliage of a growing crop. If it is being “flown on”, applied by a spray plane, then the application rate of the spray might, perhaps, be 2 gallons an acre, so an ounce of concentrate would be added to the tanks for every two gallons of water. If a tractor-mounted sprayer, there might be ten times that much spray applied to each acre. If so, then the correct mix would be an ounce of concentrate per 20 gallons of solution in the spray tank. The strategy for the farmer is to mix it with something else he is already going to spray on the crop . .Which means that the cost of applying the WW is zero, since he is going to make that pass over the field anyway. Another thing he will normally do, is cut down by perhaps one-third, the other active ingredients he is applying , since the WW will increase their uptake by the plants. If the other item he is applying is a chemical fertilizer containing nitrogen, Dr. Willard (“Doc”) always said that fertilizer should be reduced by two-thirds, since the WW could increase the absorption of the nutrients in the fertilizer enough, that if applied at the full rate, the plant’s roots might be “burned” by getting too much of the nitrogen. Given the one-third to two-thirds reduction of the other sprays, the savings in those other sprays will typically much more than pay for the cost of the WW . . so the farmer is ahead already, and he gets the other benefits of the WW free!

If you don’t have one of our tabloid newspaper-type publications . . “The Dakota Dialogue”, handy, you might want to ask us for another copy. Many pages of that are devoted to plant and animal uses.

We’ve been talking, thus far, about what would be called “foliar feeding” . .spraying the foliage of the plants. And that is certainly the way that most WW is used on plants.

However, spraying or soaking the seeds that you are going to plant, not long before planting them, is certainly a good way to get them off to a very rapid start, and increase the germination rate. Also, in transplanting plants, giving the roots a good soaking with a “stronger” solution . . perhaps the normal human drinking solution . . .putting one ounce of concentrate in each gallon of the water you are using is recommended.

One of the more dramatic reports we’ve ever had came from some friends who had planted potatoes and simply wet the pieces of seed potatoes before they were planted . . did that to a portion of the seed potatoes and not to others . . then noted which hills of potatoes came from the treated seed and which did not. The yield differences were HUGE! And that is all they did . . in that “test” they ONLY treated the seed.

Another way to use it of possible interest to farmers and gardeners is to spray the bare soil in the fall with a WW solution after the crop is off it, and before winter. This is reported to “work on” the soil during the winter, improving the quality of the soil and making nutrients in it more available. This would typically be done with that “ounce per acre” solution in the case of a farmer with large acreage . . .if on a small garden, you’d doubtless do it at many times that rate.

WHAT TO USE ...ULTIMATE Dark or CLEAR? On plants, always the ULTIMATE Dark . . The carbon-based materials in there are extremely useful to the plant . . even at those very low concentrations.

The only farming operation I ever heard of using the Clear was one in which the main point of adding the WW was to make a microbial solution perform much better . . and we suspect that the Ultimate Dark actually would have been even better, but the people doing it got started with the Clear and were so amazed by how beneficial THAT was, that they looked no further. The microbial solution contained some strains that were developed by a foreign-born genius and they did indeed do wonders for the growing crops. However, the person who was providing the farmers with the microbe solution WITH the WW mixed in it, said later that, after he found out how much better the “bugs” worked WITH the WW than without it, that if he didn’t have access to the WW, he wouldn’t even mess around with the microbes.

An important point for readers is, as expressed by us many times in trying to explain how to use it to farmers, gardeners, etc . “You can spend the next twenty years figuring out the exact most cost-effective mixture to apply to your carrots, or daisies, or bell peppers, or soybeans, or whatever . . On YOUR soil, in YOUR area, YOUR latitude, etc. But I can pretty much guarantee you that once you figure that out . . .if you put on one-tenth that much .. you’ll still notice significant benefit . . And if you put on twenty times that much, you won’t hurt anything .. doubtless will work even better, but probably not as much “return on investment” ... experienced users may say, “yes, only five bucks back for every dollar spent, instead of fifty!” In other words, the “bottom line” is that the “appropriate mix” covers such a broad range and is so cost-effective that there’s not much pay-off in trying to really “fine tune” the mixture.

Implications for People?

We’re often asked if the fact that fertilizers need to be reduced when using WW due to the increased absorption of nutrients (including fertilizers), when WW is used, means it may also improve people’s nutrient absorption. All we can say is, “yes, a lot of natural health experts have concluded WW significantly improves nutrient absorption and assimilation in people and that’s just one of the benefits they report.”

To some people, WW’s demonstrated enhancement of nutrient absorption in plants is just more tangible evidence of what WW can do.