Farming with electricity changes everything
Farming With Electricity Is Going To Change EVERYTHING!
Farming With Electricity Is Going To Change EVERYTHING! Welcome back to Down On The Farm, today on the channel we are going to talk about BETTER FARMING THROUGH ELECTRICITY. Chinese researchers are reporting that applying an electric field to pea plants increased yields. This process — known as electroculture — has been tested multiple times, but in each case there are irregularities in the scientific process, so there is still an opportunity for controlled research to produce meaningful data.
This recent research used two plots of peas planted from the same pods. The plants were tended identically except one plot was stimulated by an electric field. The yield on the stimulated plot was about 20% more than the control plot.
The actual paper is paywalled in the journal Nature Food, but the idea seems simple enough. If you search for the topic, you’ll find there have been other studies with similar findings. There are also anecdotal reports of electrical plant stimulation going back to 1746. The researchers can’t offer an explanation for why this would work. They did, however, use a novel method for generating electricity by harvesting energy from the environment with equipment they say costs about $40. From the diagram, it looks like a windmill-operated Wimshurst machine that rubs rabbit fur against some plastic. We imagine this would make a decent high school science project. In other news, Walmart Invests in Indoor Vertical Farming Startup Plenty. Walmart, America’s largest goods store, recently announced that it bought a share of the agriculture company, Plenty. Plenty specializes in vertical farming. In a statement, Walmart official Charles Redfield said the partnership will help the company offer the “highest-quality foods at the best prices.” Plenty is based in San Francisco, California. Walmart is an international company based in Bentonville, Arkansas. Watch till the end for more details about BETTER FARMING THROUGH ELECTRICITY and other farming news.
