Better Plant Stock for Nursery Growers

WaterUps offers the ideal solution for nursery growers and propagators to improve the quality and yield of their plant stock.

It does this in a few key ways:

• WaterUps is an Australian wicking innovation that has made the use of sub-irrigation wicking technology more efficient and applicable for the nursery industry.
• Since launching in 2016 WaterUps has proven the ability of our wicking system to use less water to grow stronger, healthier plants faster, particularly in food gardens, and for plants to have an extended cropping or yield season.
• To date, most nursery growers use a variety of plant mediums to grow stock and a variety of methods to keep soil as the right moisture level. Some use humidity as an activator, others use above ground sprays, overhead sprinklers or handheld hoses to water plants in pots. This can result in valuable nutrient loss and can be a sub-optimal method of watering.
• In a WaterUps system, nutrients are retained in the reservoir and pulled up through the wicks into the soil and plant. Even rainwater, which has high-value nutritional benefits, is retained for outdoor grown stock.
• The WaterUps system ensures that consistent optimum soil moisture levels are maintained with less water being used. It also enables a cleaner safer environment with minimal messy run-off or mossy areas.
• In 2020 WaterUps released the Sub-Irrigation Channel which has the WaterUps wicking cells completely enclosed in a reservoir tank. The system can be easily extended with extension pipes making it easier to fill long garden beds with one hose inlet.

This innovation is perfect for nurseries and plant propagators as it enables long wicking beds to be installed quickly and easily and make watering seedlings and stock much easier.

2022 Trials of WaterUps in Plant Nursery Growing Operations

For several years, WaterUps has been working with a variety of horticulturalists and researchers to advance how WaterUps can improve plant growing processes. One of these experts is Tasmanian horticulturalist Angus Stewart.

In 2020 and 2021 Angus conducted trials with varieties of kangaroo paw in our wicking bed and non-wicking bed environments. The WaterUps Wicking beds produced superior results in terms of flower production.

Following these trials, we now have commercial trials of the WaterUps system being undertaken by leading plant stock breeders. The performance of the Sub-Irrigation Channel is being compared to other propagation and growing techniques.

It is our expectation that WaterUps will become widely adopted by the industry and be an innovation that is used worldwide amongst member of the International Plant Propagation Society (IPPS)

We value the contribution of Nursery Growers

At WaterUps we support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

With many of these goals, it is clear healthy plants have a big role to play in the future of our planet – and life on earth.

The importance of resilient, productive, disease-resistant plant stock being grown in our nurseries cannot be overestimated.

Biodiversity and plant species are declining and under threats in parts of the world, due to deforestation, climate change impacts, urbanisation, and chemicals.

There is a pressing need for nursery stock growers to help provide plants to address these issues and help with food gardens, urban greening, rain and biophilic gardens and other eco-systems.