CHAPTER NINETEEN

The New Laboratory Evidence

In the last few years electroculture has returned to the front rank of scientific journals, with tools the old workers never had.

Peas, wind and rain

In January 2022 the journal Nature Food published a study by a Chinese team led from Zhejiang University, with the nanotechnology pioneer Zhong Lin Wang among the authors. They built a small generator that turns the motion of wind and falling rain into high-voltage electricity by friction, a triboelectric nanogenerator, and used it to maintain an electric field over growing peas. They reported that the treated peas germinated about 26 percent faster and yielded about 18 percent more than untreated ones, and that the device cost only a few tens of dollars to make.

This is a real result in a leading journal, and its yield figure again falls close to Blackman’s. It is also a single small-scale experiment. Commentators at the time pointed out that other differences between the plots could have contributed, and it awaits independent repetition on a larger scale. Note too that this was a powered system: the wind and rain drove a generator that produced tens of thousands of volts. It was not a passive antenna.

Electronic soil

In late 2023 a group at Linköping University in Sweden, led by Eleni Stavrinidou, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a study of what they called eSoil. They grew barley seedlings hydroponically in a growing mat made of cellulose mixed with an electrically conductive polymer, so that a small voltage could be applied directly at the roots. Seedlings whose roots were stimulated for a period grew, over fifteen days, to about 50 percent more dry weight than unstimulated ones. The power used was very low.

The authors were frank that they do not yet know the mechanism, and that seedling growth over two weeks is not the same as yield at harvest. But the experiment was controlled and carefully measured, and it points to a second route for powered electroculture, through the root zone, that may suit indoor and vertical farming.

Seeds and plasma

A third line of work treats the seed before planting. Exposing seeds briefly to an electric field, a pulsed discharge, or a cold plasma has been reported in many studies to speed germination and early growth in various crops, probably by roughening the seed coat, letting water in faster, and killing surface microbes. Results vary by species and dose, and too much treatment damages the seed. This is an active research field with commercial interest.

What the new evidence adds up to

Three things stand out.

First, the modern studies agree with the old ones on the general size of the effect of powered treatment where one is found: gains of perhaps a fifth, not doublings or triplings.

Second, they agree that it is still not understood. More than a century after Lemström, nobody can state the mechanism with confidence, and that remains the main obstacle to making the effect dependable.

Third, every one of these positive results involved electricity that was generated and applied. Not one involved a passive coil.