In the time around 2012, I came across the “Plantricity” system that was developed by David MacZura and published to the world via his friend Mark Fancher’s website, BroadrOOt.com. David was developing 2 methods of growing, one called MultirOOting, and another called Plantricity. Plantricity is David’s way of stimulating plants by planting a portion of the plant other than its normal root system into a separate container and electrifying both containers with a switched electric current. These photographs are from his old website; I like the idea of keeping alive his original research – as he deserves credit for being a part of my inspiration long ago.
As you can see, the results of his experiments stand for themselves:In the photo below, the electrified Pothos plant on the right side has much larger leaves that are also much greener than the multiRooted plants on the left.
The photo below shows the electrified plant as having more than double the growth of the MultirOOted plant:
Another effect that can be seen is a larger sized root-ball (right image, below), as shown in these 10 day old pepper plants.
I think it’s interesting that they found that electrical stimulation also caused the abundant growth of mushrooms in their growing medium, too. I haven’t heard much about low-voltages being effective mushroom production.
For those interested in aquaculture, the photo below shows a small group of fish that are congregating around a custom powered fish-house that houses an electric-field. It turns out that the stimulated house was a popular place for the fish to congregate.
The author writes, “Over a period of time, the loss of fish was drastically less on the electrically stimulated setup. The appetite and size of the fish electrically stimulated setup was also much greater than the non-electric tank.” – Plantricity.com website
Summary
Back in the early days of modern electroculture, there really was so little information available. There were a number of papers written about the subject, but there was literally no community around the topic, except for the few folks like myself and Yannick who watched over each others’ developments over time. When I came across this old website, I felt that it was great to see more independent experimenters posting the results of their experiments online. Of course now, things have changed a lot… and I suspect this is just the beginning!
As far as the results they attained, their results are in alignment with my own independent studies, albeit using somewhat different methods of stimulation, namely applying stimulation through two sets of pots, through which the bulk flow of electrical current went through the main stem of the plant. In summary, the following effects on the plant were observed:
- Larger leaves
- Greener leaves
- Greatly increased stem growth
- Increased growth of mushrooms
While not all plants experience these marked levels of response, it is clear that the Plantricity method was effective for accelerating the growth of potted Pothos plants.
To learn more about Electroculture, consider purchasing our book, Electro-Horticulture: The Secret to Faster Growth, Larger Yields, and More… Using Electricity! Check it out – available on Amazon.com.
