David Wechsler

FYI, there is a new open source hardware company that's created a new product called Open Bug Farms: http://www.openbugfarm.com/. I look forward to checking out their kits as they come available.

I am co-hosting a tweetchat this coming Friday, at 1pm Central Time Zone (USA) on the topic of electro-horticulture and the cleanup of toxic contaminants from soil. I would love to hear input from other Permies. To learn more, go to http://ElectricFertilizer.com/groundchat. We will be giving away jugs of all-natural biostimulation microbes, and my latest book on accelerating plant growth with electricity.

Hope to see you there!

First of all, congrats on your new land... I was also concerned about similar things on a piece of dream-land that we were looking at a couple of years ago where we saw pools of rainbow-colored oils floating in holes in the ground.

I would like to build upon what Yukkuri said, regarding the elemental and chemical toxins. It turns out that in addition to the great suggestions the others have made, you can take advantage of phytoremediation (using plants to help with clean-up). Certain plants known as hyperaccumulators can suck out many elemental (heavy metal) contaminants.

Furthermore, in addition to using various home-brew soil microbes, you can purchase specialized microbial inoculant blends that are designed to consume various types of hydrocarbons, radioactive substances, and other materials (known as bioremediation). These are collections of naturally-occurring organisms that will help with cleaning, or potentially transforming very toxic substances into less toxic derivatives.

Lastly, I'd like to mention that while the treatment with inoculants can be pretty fast compared to phytoremediation, the process can be sped up using a couple of technologies - biostimulation microbes (another class of microbes than enhance plant growth), or electro-horticulture (using electricity to speed up plant growth, increase biomass, and increase uptake rates). Applying these technologies can result in a big speed-up that will help with not only improving ecological balance, but will also help you make the land productive again, faster.

Hey fellow permies!

I've been studying the effects of electricity upon plants and soils for the past few years now and have learned that there are a number of cool things that electricity does to plants, bacteria, soils and the like. In brief, in plants it causes a wide array of physiological changes ranging from increased respiration and metabolic activity, changes to leaf & stem pigmentation (increases sugar production, sunlight conversion efficiency), increases in fluid/nutrient uptake, and more. In bacteria, it has similar effects upon metabolism and reproduction rates, etc. There is a lot of variability within all of these claims, and if you're curious to learn more, one my big sources came from a book packed with lots of research: Plant Electrophysiology, multiple authors, edited by Volkov - it's a great (technical) reference. Another source of knowledge in this area comes from the realm of land remediation... in particular, the branch of electrokinetic remediation. In it we learn that though the application of DC electric fields, that we can electrically transport ions, colloids, water, and even bacteria.

Applications Ideas

So, I have some ideas for applications of this technology that I would like to share with you. Here are some of my initial ideas:

Electrically transporting nutrients from manure piles to where places where it would be desired in a field or otherwise

(Per a recent blog post of mine), electrically moving toxic root exudates (e.g. juglone (black walnut)) away from desired crops

Electrically influencing the growth of roots away from toxic soil regions (or towards beneficial regions like water sources)

One of the things I love about permaculture is the inventiveness of the founders and the community. I think if we could find ways of creatively harnessing electricity in the ag space, we could realize a whole slew of new benefits that could be of great help to growers worldwide.

What are your thoughts? Has anyone here ever tried anything like this?

Hey Joseph,

Sorry for not replying earlier... I guess the response got lost in my email bucket...

I agree with you that AC is a bit overstimulating - in my day job, I work with smart meters and when I occasionally have to perform tests in the meter room, a room filled with electric meters, I start getting sick. I think it's a real problem in our society. In fact, when there is a power outage, it makes sense that all feels well in the world.

That's what I like about DC electroculture - it's inherently safe, uses minute amounts of current, and works well. AC and high voltage systems bother me and seem to be unsafe (in the hands of the un-initiated or electrically sensitive).

Hey Joseph,

Thanks for the great links - I am especially interested in the mushroom-related ones because I'm not much familiar with them.

With regards to integrating electricity into permaculture practices, I think there are many possibilities. One of which is taking advantage of the phenomenon of electrokinetic action soil nutrients. By applying an electric field across an area of soil, charged nutrients are be transported from towards the electrode of the opposite charge. This can be capitalized upon in a number of ways:
* First, I think that companion planting methods can be modified to allow plants that work well together to be more separated from each other, since root exudates from each of the plants can be transported across large distances, electrokinetically.
* Second, I think that nutrients can be gathered / attracted towards the plant(s) of interest from a much larger surface area of soil. In my mind I think of this as having an effect like turning the ground into a hydroponic medium, allowing a denser amount of nutrients to come into contact with plant roots. Historically, (I cannot think of the person who discovered it), someone found that a field can be fertilized electronically by placing one electrode next to a manure pile, and another electrode at the far end of row.

This is all for DC-based stimulation, of course.

What do you think?

For more great information on electroculture, come check out my website, http://ElectricFertilizer.com.
- David

I think it would be okay to grow food nearby roadways and such as long as you take some active measures to remove the toxins... For example, in a recent reply of mine I touched briefly upon using phytoremediation to remove toxins from the soil.

It would probably be good to grow a high barrier of air-filtering plants as well; see: https://permies.com/t/12809/organic-sustainable-practices/Air-Purifying-Plants

And lastly, it may also be a good idea to install a solar-powered fan over your garden area to shuttle-away any airborne particles coming your way in general.

I would like to add to the conversation that if you're planning on growing on or in concrete containers, it may be a good idea to try some DIY phytoremediation - that is, grow certain plants that tend to sop up heavy metals and other toxins. Check out wikipedia's List of Hyperaccumulators for suitable plants. One such plant is sunflower - so depending upon the toxins present within concrete, it may be worth growing some in your concrete container first, and then be sure to destroy (not compost) the plant. Look for a local household hazardous waste program for specifics.

If you want to accelerate the process, consider electrifying the soil mass using a DC power supply such as a battery or solar cell.

Another tip: Electrify them to increase their numbers!

Seriously... If you apply a weak DC electric field to their growth medium/food source, there may be an increase their activity and their reproduction rate as well.

There's a bunch of research out there that shows how bacteria responds to weak electric fields. I'm not sure if nematodes fit into the exact same category, but it would be an interesting experiment for someone to try out.