The simplest idea is that because plant cells like ours have electrical signals, you can increase the energy of plant growth by capturing atmospheric electricity and channeling it into the soil.
In recent months, the term has popped up on social media as growers with gardens large and small turn to electroculture. A public Facebook group called Energetic Agriculture has over 150,000 members. Since the beginning of summer, Google searches for "electroculture", "electroculture, gardening" and "electroculture, copper wire" have been opened, and the hashtag has received more than 97 million views on TikTok. Many tutorials show how to make antennas by wrapping copper wire around long wooden dowels or bamboo stakes. There are many "before" and "after" testimonials from gardeners who say that adding antennas to electroculture has helped their plants flourish.
Mueller is one of them. "Honestly, we haven't seen a big difference for radishes, but there is a big difference for cucumbers and tomatoes," he says. Tendril plants are "taller plants with longer stems and greener leaves."
But for every gardener who loves electroculture, there is another who is ready to discredit it. Most of the evidence is anecdotal, and current scientific research is scarce. However, the evidence may be mounting: studies in Europe and Asia have shown promising results, and electroculture advocates, as well as some scientists, say the use of electricity could revolutionize food production.
A technology with ancient roots
Electroculture may be popular on social media, but the idea isn't new. In the mid-18th century, when Benjamin Franklin discovered the snake and the key, electrocultural practices were widespread among aristocratic scientists, including the French physicist Jean-Antoine Nollet, who discovered osmosis, and the English physician (and great-grandfather Charles) Erasmus. . . Darwin. In 1783, another French physicist, Pierre Bertalon de Saint-Lazare, published the book "On the Electricity of Vegetables", in which he described several experiments of his contemporaries on the electrification of plants.
Bertalone's book also heralded the invention of the "electrovegetameter," which used a vast system of metal poles and cables above the garden to electrify the entire field. When Jan Ingenhaus, one of the pioneers of photosynthesis, installed this device in his garden, things went wrong and the plants died immediately. Ingenhaus publicly condemned this idea, and electroculture fell out of fashion in the following century.
In 1898, Finnish physics professor Karl Selim Lemstrom spoke at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He observed that trees grew faster under the Northern Lights and attributed this effect to the electric field of the Northern Lights. Their experiments inspired British scientists to conduct their own experiments, and the initial results were so promising that in 1918 the British Department of Agriculture and Fisheries convened an official committee to investigate electroculture.
In 1936, the committee was disbanded due to lack of funds. Yannick Van Doorne, a Belgian agricultural engineer and proponent of electroculture, explains that after World War II, the issue was largely forgotten by the scientific community as synthetic pesticides and herbicides, originally invented to support the war effort, became popular. For example, the US is dealing with excesses of ammonium nitrate, a bomb ingredient, by selling it to farmers as fertilizer.
“It was like magic. You throw dust in the field and it grows better,” says Van Doorn. “It was easy and cheap. Electroculture was more mysterious; "They didn't understand how it worked, and it was difficult to use on a large scale." As a result, Van Dorn says, it was again abandoned, dismissed as pseudoscience, and relegated to popular practice.
At the beginning of the summer, electroculture videos began to appear on social networks, which aroused interest and suspicion. Power forward Kevin Espiritu falls into the latter category. He posted a video on Instagram telling Epic Gardening's million subscribers that the antennas weren't working. "Do you think I wouldn't do it if I buried wood plugs with brass rods in my garden... and could get an amazing harvest?" he said. "You will see that the whole place is covered with copper bars."
He said he doesn't believe Spirit's anecdotes about increased production because he hasn't seen any explanation of how the antenna can physically help the plant grow.
"Does it help you photosynthesize better?" Does it help you absorb nutrients better? Does it speed up the plant's cell metabolism? Nobody seems to have an answer to that," he says. "And when someone says, 'It uses the Earth's natural energy,' it's like, 'Okay, cool.' Remember when we thought the air was full of ether?
While there's no conclusive evidence that copper antennas — as Espirito puts it, "a simple version of social media electroculture" — have any effect on the garden, research in this broader area is growing. Some studies have shown that other electrified systems may work.
For example, research in Japan has shown that creating artificial lighting near shiitake stems almost doubles the amount of mushrooms produced. And in 2018, Chinese scientists told the South China Morning Post that an experiment involving applying positive voltage pulses to crops resulted in a 20-30 percent increase in yield. The World Economic Forum wrote that "the results of these experiments are also very big. ...Producing more food without exponential pressure on resources or using excessively high chemicals may be one of the recurring themes of the 21st century."
A recent Chinese study published in the journal Nature Food used a device called a triboelectric nanogenerator powered by wind and rain to create an electric field in a pea crop. The device was built for less than $40 and accelerated germination and increased pea yields by about 20 percent. The technology is immediately scalable and "could greatly contribute to building a sustainable economy," the researchers write.
But no facts have been established about electroculture, and a 2018 systematic review of 19 studies on the topic found that they "all suffer from methodological flaws that reduce confidence in the results."
Whether this will revolutionize agriculture remains to be seen, but adding copper rods to your garden is unlikely to harm your plants. There is little risk in attempting this, although Espiritu notes the possibility that a high enough copper pole could attract lightning.
Fans of electroculture are sure that it will not be swept under the carpet this time.
Director Müller will present a documentary called "The Life of Electroculture" with the participation of Van Dorn and other fans. The project's crowdfunding campaign raised more than $40,000. According to Van Doorne, maybe it's finally time to spread the word about electroculture.
"The media today is talking about pollution, chemicals, and everyone wants solutions," he says. "Fertilizers are more expensive than ever, so farmers are looking for alternatives. People start gardening because of the high cost of food and because they want to provide for themselves. And everyone wants to get the best results without effort, which is why electroculture is so interesting.
Keith Morgan is a freelance writer living in Richland, Pennsylvania.
