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electroculture gardening

 
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Hi I haven't searched for this topic but has anyone  seen or is  setting up a garden this might be helpful.  Does anyone know if this type of electroculture gardening  is working? ... https://altifarm.com/blogs/home-page/electroculture-gardening
I know that this type of garden is a great idea keyhole garden   https://www.bobvila.com/articles/keyhole-gardening/     Could they be combined?   If one adds pink to the lighting schedule would one get even more produce makes one wonder what a green house would produce.    It is sort of a thermal type of design.  thanks for the help
 
pollinator
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I’ve never heard of this before. The keyhole..yes it’s a solid method many people use. I think these “new” ideas like electrocuting your plant even if it produced more is just extra work.

If you go organic you will have veggie running out your ears. For me I have always had a lot of production from my garden when I was using non organic methods combined with organic. Now I’m 100% organic and get the same basic output if not more but don’t have to buy products making it cheaper. And more healthy. I never had mycelium in my old gardens… I sure do now.

Now is a perfect time to start compost since there access to green material again.

For me simplifying was the answer. Lots of encouraging threads here helped me rethink my methods and it’s saved me work and money to get a healthier product. Win win
 
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I'm trying electroculture this year.  The basic setup can be done easily and cheaply.  Just a wooden post and some copper wire.  I have two raised beds and am putting a post in one bed only.  Both have onion and lettuce that I'll be able to easily compare.

Since I had the extra wire, I put a second post near some berry plants that haven't been doing too well.  It is a cheap experiment that cost about $10 total.  If it works, then I'll expand my setup.  If not, then I'll find an alternate use for the posts and wire.  No harm done.

Edit: Interesting.  I'm reading the altiface article.  Very different and more complex from what I've seen elsewhere.  Electroculture is definitely not new.  It has been around since the early 20th century.  Altiface is going out of their way to wire in electricity.  You can get a very similar (but lower power) result using the difference in electrical potential between the air and the ground.  I'm using a simple 6ft post with a copper wire in a spiral around it and ~6" extra wire at the top and bottom.  It acts very much like a radio antenna and pulls a low-level current into the ground.  Very cheap and easy.
 
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Electroculture gardening sounds really interesting from what I have been reading.

Does anyone have experience with it keeping bugs away besides helping plants grow better?
 
Cujo Liva
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Here is a real short video (1 min) with how to produce a simple electroculture antenna.  The longer, the better as it will result in more electron flow.  6' is common.

 
Cujo Liva
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If you really want to learn a lot more, here is a 2hr video explaining how electroculture works.  They show much fancier (and I presume better) antennas to the simple one in the video above.  If my experiment works this year, then I'll look into more advanced designs for next year.

 
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An interesting story...
Last month I was part of a group who visited a permaculture farm and was told about wormwood and why you should grow it for poultry. We were allowed to take some cuttings and so I took some.
I dipped them in honey and planted them in a pot where they sat for a month looking very sad and wilted.
I put a copper coil in the pot a couple of days ago and the cuttings have just started shooting back to life.
The coil was made using a 3D printed formwork. The STL file can be obtained from...
https://elettro-coltura.com/en/prodotto/3d-stl-print-electroculture-file/


Note: for use in the southern hemisphere the file should be mirrored before printing so that the coil winds anticlockwise.
small-spiral-2.jpg
copper garden coil
Wormwood-23April2023.jpg
copper garden coil in container
 
Cujo Liva
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I found a free 3D model.  Haven't tried it yet, but I'll have a friend try printing one for me:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5960175

Is that white spiral standard plastic-wrapped wire or painted copper?
 
Chris D. Ryan
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Cujo Liva wrote:I found a free 3D model.  Haven't tried it yet, but I'll have a friend try printing one for me:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5960175


Is that white spiral standard plastic-wrapped wire or painted copper?




Thanks for finding that. Last time I looked on thingyverse there was nothing. I note that was only posted recently.
Also he changed the design to use less filament.

The white spiral copper wire is actually the tinned tube from a fridge thermostat. I use old fridges as secure storage to keep mice out of my valuables and so have a quantity of old thermostats that I have removed.

Some of the older fridges have a larger copper pipe at the back that can be wound and used. I made the large coil by winding around a large orange cone that are used as a road marker.
Also of interest is that for years the bird of paradise plant only had 4 leaves until 6 weeks ago when I put the large coil in the pot. All the extra leaves are new!
Large-spiral.jpg
copper garden coil in potted bird of paradise plant
 
Chris D. Ryan
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Cujo Liva wrote:I found a free 3D model.  Haven't tried it yet, but I'll have a friend try printing one for me:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5960175

Talk to your friend about scaling it up. We have made one that is 14cm across the base.

2-spirals.jpg
3D printed electroculture garden cones
 
Chris D. Ryan
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G'day
A couple of interesting things I have done with copper.
I found an old switchboard in a skip bin and from it I got 6 lengths of heavy duty copper cable and the 3 bus-bars, one of which I put into a pot with a plant that has been sitting there not doing much for a long time. After 2 weeks it has 2 new light green leaves.

Even though I am an L-platter as this stuff, I have given several presentations to excite others. Every participant gets a bamboo antenna. I found some more copper wire and have started making more for the next talk I give. I even used a dead pine tree to make a long one.
switchboard.jpg
[Thumbnail for switchboard.jpg]
busbar-27April2023.jpg
test plant for garden electroculture
6_antennae.jpg
bamboo antenna for garden electroculture
bamboo_ends.jpg
copper wires on bamboo poles for garden electroculture
 
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I've been doing this with great success so far. My first test was a house plant that never grew, well its huge now.My new garden plants are already doubled in size and they are only in small pots in my greenhouse.  Amazing..Copper is my new friend.  I even drink MY WATER out of a copper cup. Thank goodness this is not hidden from us anymore. Using sticks from my own property and wrapping copper wire on them is my path. GOOD LUCK 😉. If you think it's woo-woo just try it in 1 plant( inside or outside)🌻🪴🌵🥀
 
gardener
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This is really interesting. I will have to try, since I have such terrible luck with propagation.

It reminds me of how biochar is said to increase the electrical conductivity of the soil. I wonder if these two effects are related?
 
Posts: 143
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Ive been searching my fool head off for ANY info so substance and tests done of an actual scientific bases to let me know if I should take the time to try electroculture and to date I can find no proof its worth the time. I can find lots of youtube stuff that I watched but cant trust after seeing how the "test" or trial was conducted.

Everything in my decades of engineering tells me this will offer no increase in yields or growth but I dont claim to know it all so I continue to search for answers.
 
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Ron Kulas wrote:Ive been searching my fool head off for ANY info so substance and tests done of an actual scientific bases to let me know if I should take the time to try electroculture and to date I can find no proof its worth the time. I can find lots of youtube stuff that I watched but cant trust after seeing how the "test" or trial was conducted.

Everything in my decades of engineering tells me this will offer no increase in yields or growth but I dont claim to know it all so I continue to search for answers.



Well, people thought the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison and Mr. Lister were wrong . . . maybe these guys are correct. Anecdotal stuff can always be proven scientifically later. I'm gonna try it!
 
Ron Kulas
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Constancia Wiweru wrote:

Ron Kulas wrote:Ive been searching my fool head off for ANY info so substance and tests done of an actual scientific bases to let me know if I should take the time to try electroculture and to date I can find no proof its worth the time. I can find lots of youtube stuff that I watched but cant trust after seeing how the "test" or trial was conducted.

Everything in my decades of engineering tells me this will offer no increase in yields or growth but I dont claim to know it all so I continue to search for answers.



Well, people thought the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison and Mr. Lister were wrong . . . maybe these guys are correct. Anecdotal stuff can always be proven scientifically later. I'm gonna try it!



Thomas Edison (was my boss) and the founder of the company Ive been working for for 25 years.(General Electric) In engineering, we seek proof. I can find no solid proof thus far. The jury is still out on this one.
 
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Ron Kulas wrote:

Thomas Edison (was my boss) and the founder of the company Ive been working for for 25 years.(General Electric) In engineering, we seek proof. I can find no solid proof thus far. The jury is still out on this one.



Well, let’s think through a trial protocol!
As a first pass, I would start with plastic pots, since they would remove a variable. You would also want copper wire in one set of controls, to ensure that the wire was not contributing chemically. Here is what I have come up with:
Materials
3 12 inch sticks.
Roll of copper wire (gauge?).
9 1 gallon plastic pots (or more, if you have the capacity for mor replicates)
Packet of swiss chard seed
Measuring cup
Garden soil
Watering can
1 quart bottle
1 bag good quality potting soil
Snips for the wire
Measuring tape

Protocol:
1. Prepare 3 12 inch sticks wrapped with a piece of copper wire, as shown in the pics on this thread (what gauge?). Mark the 6 inch mark, and measure how much wire is used to wrap up to that point.
2. Cut 3 lengths of wire of whatever length it took to wrap the first 6 inches of the stick.
3.  Set up 9 1 gallon plastic pots. Use tape and a permanent marker to label the pots 1-9.
4. Fill pots 1-6 to the brim with bagged potting mix, premoistened if necessary. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of good garden soil or living compost on the surface and stir to combine with the first inch. Water each pot with 1 quart of water to settle the soil, (pour a measured quart into a watering can to get the sprinkler effect) Push in the wrapped sticks in pots 1-3 to the 6 inch mark. If they won’t go that far, adjust the length of the 3 short wires you cut.
5. fill pots 7-9 halfway with soil. Loosely coil the short lengths of copper wire and place one in the center of each pot. Fill the to the top with potting soil, add a half cup of garden soil, and water with 1 quart water.
6. Plant 3 Swiss chard seeds in each pot. Place pots in shade outdoors until seeds sprout, then place all pots in the sun. Water daily until first leaves show, then every other day with a measured amount of water, the same for each pot. Exact amount of water depends on climate.


Anything I might be missing? I will commit to doing this if someone else will, and share the results in pictures on this thread.

 
Anne Miller
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Here is someone who did a 120-day experiment with pictures:

https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/120-day-electroculture-experiment/

My second example is of two bougainvillea landscape plants that were partially killed off by a winter freeze.

They were at roughly the same stage of recovery four months ago when I placed a copper wire electroculture antenna in one of the pots (south side of the plant) to see if the plant would recover faster.

Unfortunately, it did not.

As you can see, the potted plant without an antenna is significantly further along in the recovery process.

 
Cujo Liva
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Ron Kulas wrote:Ive been searching my fool head off for ANY info so substance and tests done of an actual scientific bases to let me know if I should take the time to try electroculture and to date I can find no proof its worth the time. I can find lots of youtube stuff that I watched but cant trust after seeing how the "test" or trial was conducted.

Everything in my decades of engineering tells me this will offer no increase in yields or growth but I don't claim to know it all so I continue to search for answers.



Quite understandable.  I am/was equally skeptical.  However, based simply on:
  • claims of effectiveness with images that showed nice results (low trust)
  • major modern proponent that is very woo-woo/non-scientific (Matt @ cultivateelevate) (low trust)
  • lesser known major modern proponent (mostly because of language barriers because he is French) that is far more rigorous (Yannick van Doorne) (moderate trust)
  • proven failures of science where it conflicts with politics and/or the profit motive (cemented during Covid)
  • a desire for a fixed/low cost means to maintain/improve fertility, particularly in the face of potential supply problems
  • performing an N=1 experiment is cheap and easy (bingo!)


  • So, I decided to run my own test this year ($10) comparing my two garden beds.  The results aren't entirely in yet, so I haven't formed a conclusion.

    As for the science behind it, I've read a believable theory that the low-level electrical current encourages the plant to pull in more water & nutrients resulting in more growth.  I don't have the knowledge/tools to prove it, but even if the explanation of it is wrong, but the result is observably positive, it will be worth expanding my use of electroculture.  I'll leave it to others to do the low-level science that would be helpful here.  I really do want the proper scientific explanation because that would allow us to properly test, refine and possibly multiply the benefits of this technology.

    How do we know that these antennas capture and transmit current from the air?  Well, from Richard Feynman (Lectures on Physics):


    Please watch the 2 hour van Doorne video above.  It is fairly rigorous.

    Hope this helps some.  I definitely can't say that this technology has been rigorously studied yet, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing, even on the small scale.
     
    Ron Kulas
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    Cujo Liva wrote:

    Ron Kulas wrote:Ive been searching my fool head off for ANY info so substance and tests done of an actual scientific bases to let me know if I should take the time to try electroculture and to date I can find no proof its worth the time. I can find lots of youtube stuff that I watched but cant trust after seeing how the "test" or trial was conducted.

    Everything in my decades of engineering tells me this will offer no increase in yields or growth but I don't claim to know it all so I continue to search for answers.



    Quite understandable.  I am/was equally skeptical.  However, based simply on:
  • claims of effectiveness with images that showed nice results (low trust)
  • major modern proponent that is very woo-woo/non-scientific (Matt @ cultivateelevate) (low trust)
  • lesser known major modern proponent (mostly because of language barriers because he is French) that is far more rigorous (Yannick van Doorne) (moderate trust)
  • proven failures of science where it conflicts with politics and/or the profit motive (cemented during Covid)
  • a desire for a fixed/low cost means to maintain/improve fertility, particularly in the face of potential supply problems
  • performing an N=1 experiment is cheap and easy (bingo!)


  • So, I decided to run my own test this year ($10) comparing my two garden beds.  The results aren't entirely in yet, so I haven't formed a conclusion.

    As for the science behind it, I've read a believable theory that the low-level electrical current encourages the plant to pull in more water & nutrients resulting in more growth.  I don't have the knowledge/tools to prove it, but even if the explanation of it is wrong, but the result is observably positive, it will be worth expanding my use of electroculture.  I'll leave it to others to do the low-level science that would be helpful here.  I really do want the proper scientific explanation because that would allow us to properly test, refine and possibly multiply the benefits of this technology.

    How do we know that these antennas capture and transmit current from the air?  Well, from Richard Feynman (Lectures on Physics):


    Please watch the 2 hour van Doorne video above.  It is fairly rigorous.

    Hope this helps some.  I definitely can't say that this technology has been rigorously studied yet, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing, even on the small scale.



    That video provided is what I suspected. For such a thing to move even picoamps it would need to be so long as to be impractical. Ive been searching for any info that would validate electroculture as It sounds like a low cost thing but to date there is nothing that makes me want to expend the effort as much as biochar does.
     
    pollinator
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    I am willing to take the woo-woo electroculture challenge if somebody can offer me a credible explanation as to how this could possibly work. I haven't had much luck in that regard.

    Mostly, I think about the length of antenna and the moving conductivity/capacitance of the soil and wonder if the plants are getting AM radio (non-stop news) or FM radio -- classical music or classic rock or crunchy rap. And does that shift when the ionosphere shifts? Are we growing juvenile plant delinquents? I kid, I kid.

    The only hard data I can find refers to questionable studies.
    https://www.newscientist.com/article/2304360-can-electric-fields-help-plants-grow-new-claims-met-with-caution/
    https://phys.org/news/2022-01-chinese-electroculture-theorized.html

    But I'm convinced it doesn't matter now -- this thing is long past the zone of reasonable inquiry -- it is now a pop culture phenomenon. I hear about it from many quarters, from otherwise hard headed people. And so it follows that there are already container ships of electroculture woo-woo antennae headed for our shores. I expect to find them on Amazon, and at Home Depot, and some in my Christmas stocking.
     
    pioneer
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    Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I am willing to take the woo-woo electroculture challenge if somebody can offer me a credible explanation as to how this could possibly work. I



    I suggest you start with the Thunderbolts Project Youtube Channel
    if you are looking for the fundamentals of actively suppressed knowledge. I may be mistaken but I suspect That Electroculture taps into electrostatic double layers are especially common in current-carrying plasmas. Alternatively, I suppose it is possible that EC coils deliver energy useful to soil-life that the modern transmission of Electro-smog does not.

    Personally I believe our ancient ancestor's were very well aware of what they were doing when they constructed churches with phi angle steeples along with cross and crescent antenna on top of mercury mirror spheres. I do not have such faith in such constructions these days.

     
    Lina Joana
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    Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I am willing to take the woo-woo electroculture challenge if somebody can offer me a credible explanation as to how this could possibly work. I haven't had much luck in that regard.



    Well, I can share an interesting phenomenon, followed by why it isn’t likely to actually make a difference in healthy soil.
    Electrons flow in response to a difference in voltage potential. A 12 volt battery has two ends that are 12 volts apart: when connected, electrons flow down the potential, through your lightbulb or phone or whatever. A copper rod can be a connector, but it needs to connect two spots with different voltages for electrons to be transported.
    Now, here is the cool part: living organisms run on biological “batteries”. The flow of electrons and the energy that can be harvested from that flow is in a sense the basis of life. The reason we need oxygen is as the positive terminus in our mitochondrial “batteries”.
    What happens if you apply this idea to a waterlogged soil? The plant roots, fungus, and bacteria first use oxygen as the positive terminus for their energy generating batteries. In so doing, they make the voltage potential of that soil more negative at the bottom than at the top, where oxygen diffuses in from the air. Once oxygen is gone, plant roots and aerobic microbes will shut down. The more flexible microbes will use the next best chemical electron acceptor - usually some forms of nitrogen, followed by some forms of sulfur. That is why you often get sulfide smells in swamps - the microbes have used sulfate as an electron dump, turning it into smelly sulfide.
    So, waterlogged mud, you can get potential differences. There is a company called MudWatt that sells kits to let you see this experimentally: if you fill the jar with mud and place a wire lead at the bottom of it and another in the water at the top, you can connect the leads and power a small LED light. It will get better over time as specific microbes, known as electrogens, start transferring electrons directly to the wire. The voltage differences are always small - mostly less than a volt.
    Ok, so nothing above is controversial. The question is whether there is any way that sticking a wire into the soil could interact with any of this. Here are my thoughts:
    1) in a healthy aerated soil, you won’t get these voltage differences on a large scale. You might see them in a small scale, within an individual clump of soil, from the outside to the inside. But I don’t see how a wire would access that.
    2) Copper surfaces are toxic to most microbes.
    3) to a microbe, a centimeter is a large distance, especially if they aren’t in water and so cannot swim the distance. Any effect if the wire would therefore be expected to fall off very quickly with distance.

    Summary - I don’t see a way for sticking a copper wire into good garden soil to make much difference. BUT, if I saw evidence that it did, I would think about how integral electric potentials are to living organisms, how easily you can get small voltage differences in soil, and how little we actually understand the soil network.

     
    author
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    I recently saw someone saying that “Permaculturists promote electroculture.”

    So I googled it. This thread was the only thing I could find, which in fairness is more a question than “promotion.”

    I’ma be a little harsh, because I’m going to opine that we “Permaculturists” really shouldn’t be promoting electroculture at all.

    Here’s what I got to say about it: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPR7rhWyL/

    I’m open to discussion and you changing my mind.

    In my 22 years in this movement and well 40 in farming and gardening circles, I’ve ony ever heard Permaculturists critique and be skeptical of electroculture. That includes all my teachers and mentors.

    And for good reason: it seems quite incompatible with the main ideas and goals of Permaculture.

    It’s obvious incompatible with the central idea of creating closed loop productive ecosystems that function like natural ecosystems.

    it requires more labor for little reliable improvements.

    It relies on big, distant centralized destructive industries instead of local sun-and-people power.

    We value renewable resources, and electroculture relies on a highly limited and valuable non-renewable resource.

    And we “seek the highest impact for the least effort,” while electroculture evidence is extremely inconsistent and very weak in the best cases.

    Of course, it can be valuable for us to do experiments and share the evidence we produce. But in this case, I think that means that if we want to experiement with it, we should actually try to do scientifically valid experiments on a scientifically valid scale with controls, etc. Otherwise, sharing “results” might just be more noise that encourages people to waste money and time on an environmentally destructive consumer chochky with almost 0 reason to expect that it will ever have a positive global benefit.

    [
     
    pollinator
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    I'd agree that buying new copper for small gains in the garden (if it works, I haven't tried) wouldn't be the wisest use of resources.

    However pretty much anywhere urban in the United States you can take a walk around on garbage day and find some copper wire that is just being thrown out.

    A few minutes walk, stripping a wire, and winding it around a stick doesn't sound like a terrible amount of effort for some easy productivity gains.
     
    pollinator
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    Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I am willing to take the woo-woo electroculture challenge if somebody can offer me a credible explanation as to how this could possibly work. I haven't had much luck in that regard.


    The claim of electroculture seems to be that it pushes electrons into the soil. If that actually happens, the acidity of the soil would decrease to some degree, and the availability of nutrients varies based on soil pH.

    Of course, if that's the mechanism, electroculture would be harmful on my property as the soil is already more basic than I would prefer.
     
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    Fact is,... stabbing a pair of energized electrodes into the ground... is a guarantied way to see the fishing worms pop-up.
     
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    Fun facts: Birds land and roost on wires and antennas.
    Birds poop when they are on said wires.  
    Bird poop feeds plants.
    Electroculture may work or it may be just another chapter of the permaculture principle of diverse things working in harmony....  because if you put a wire up for birds to sit, they eat bugs, and drop poop that has bacteria, fungi, and biomass so plants grow better.   Or maybe it really does what they say.   Who knows.
     
    pollinator
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    I've been watching a lot of stuff on this lately. Going to try it this year. Not sure if I believe in it but I can't argue with results-whatever they may be!
     
    Anne Miller
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    It has been 10 months since this thread was started so it would be great if folks would let us know how their electroculture gardening turned out.
     
    Cujo Liva
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    Anne Miller wrote:It has been 10 months since this thread was started so it would be great if folks would let us know how their electroculture gardening turned out.



    Afraid I can't offer any insight.  I had some problems last year and my results were inconclusive.  I still have the stakes and copper coils, so I'm going to rerun the experiment this year.
     
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    I'm glad to see this post. My search of the Permies forum did not turn it up so I went ahead and posted a YT short that came up today 'in my feed', as they say.  I'd just echo the thoughts that, if the materials are readily available, it's worth an experiment and not just ruled out or even supported wholly on theory.  I think I have some discarded telephone wire somewhere to see.
     
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    I am posting these pics an older thread about electro-culture because of all the good information about the subject in the thread.

    These are three 3 foot tall green onion plants growing in a relatively small container with indifferent care. The "electro" addition is simply a spiraled coper wire on a smaller bamboo stick. There's another, smaller onion that was planted about a month ago.

    These were grown from cuttings left over from store bought green onions. I do that all the time, never get these type of results.

    I am also having wild success with some succulents responding to other simple antennas, while the growth of the same plants without antennas is markedly slower. My snap peas respond directly to larger antennas. The larger the antenna, the more growth.





    onion.jpg
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    Onions.jpg
    [Thumbnail for Onions.jpg]
     
    Mari Vega
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    Whoa, Nelly! I'm convinced -- convinced that it's at least worth a try.  I identified a coil of covered copper wire today that was just sitting on the shelf not doing anything--

    Thanks for posting, Jeff.

    Three-foot tall green onions that look sturdy, wow.
     
    What kind of corn soldier are you? And don't say "kernel" - that's only for this tiny ad:
    turnkey permaculture paradise for zero monies
    https://permies.com/t/267198/turnkey-permaculture-paradise-monies
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