Not usually. If you are in a situation where for some reason, you may have difficulty keeping the plants' roots moist prior to planting, then it may be of benefit. There is no credible research, as far as I'm aware, to show that these blobs of jelly do one bit of good in the soil. And I'm not just making this up. I tried the larger particle grade...man, it must have been 1990...and it offered no benefit to our plantings. but id did look weird as hell when after a rain or our crews watering, the soil surface would have all these blobs all over. I'd be leery too of these items somehow holding onto pathogens. In case you didn't notice, I'm not a fan.

The fine grade-like what you are probably asking about-can be of service in the situation above, where roots are in danger of drying out before the plant makes it into the ground.

never ..

btw ... how big??

it was used by one hosta seller back a few decades ago ... they all died after the next winter.. imo ... too wet in winter ... could have been a soil issue though ...

ken

12-18 inches

Red, I hope you understood what I was saying up above. I'll take another crack at it as I've got loads of experience with these polymer crystals: So, basically there are two size grades-larger particles intended to be mixed in with soils, supposedly to help the plant get through dry times. In my application, these products served no purpose. Even there though, I should explain; So, we've got lots of display beds and in particular, large planters that I design and manage. All those years ago-this technology was a new thing back then-I was looking for a way to keep the planting medium moist, especially over long holiday weekends and so on, when no crew would be on hand should they dry out. But here's the deal; Even at our best-if we run like bunnies starting on Monday morning-we can water those things exactly two times a week. so...progress would consist of only having to water them once a week. That just never happened. Even with their use, we had to-and could-water them twice a week, so no benefit, if you see what I'm saying.

Now with the fine grade-the type intended to be mixed up into a slurry-which BTW looks a lot like fish eggs-this is intended as a root dip. That can be of benefit. Especially if you've got a ton of seedlings (or any bare-root stock), this can indeed aid in preventing the plants' roots from desiccating before they get into the ground. That can make a large difference in success.

We've planted around 10,000 seedlings up at our land, never having used the root dip jell, and we've had really good success. But as they say, your mileage may vary. Here at work, we do indeed use the root dip jell for transporting our bare-root stock on a trailer around town. It seems to make a difference.