Benefits and Applications - Electro-Horticulture - page 101

Growth Rate
One of the commonly observed traits is that plants are seen to grow at an accelerated rate.
This opens up a number of implications that can be very valuable to the small-scale or
commercial grower. For instance, if crops can be grown in a faster manner such that their
cropcanbeharvestedearlierthannormal,thefollowingbenefitsmaybeabletoberealized:
• Reducing Risk of Frost-Damage: Whenariskoffrostdamageexistsduetoalate
harvest, the risk can be lessened by harvesting weeks earlier.
• Improving Short Grow-Season Seed Constraints: Instead of planting seed
varieties that have shorter growing seasons, the grower may be able to plant seeds
with longer maturation times to differentiate themselves from the other regional
growers.
• Improving Intensive Crops: Intensive gardeners who aim to stagger the growth
of multiple crops in a season may be able squeeze out an extra growth cycle to
further increase crop productivity.
• Improving Profitability: There can be significant financial gains due to the early
harvest of commodity crops because prices are typically at their peak at the very
beginning of the harvest period, when supplies are often at their lowest. It may be
possible to multiply one's earnings with an early delivery to the market.
These last points can also be used in indoor or urban growing scenarios, where only small
amounts of grow-space are available. By maximizing the efficiency of your grow-space,
perhaps multiple (or even multiplied) yields could be realized.
This can be seen in many real life experiments. In addition to the cases in Chapter 3 , the
author/experimenter Justin Christofleau 1 wrote about a crop of melons and cucumbers that
germinated in 4 to 5 days compared to the rest of his crop that sprouted more than 10
days later. A 2-week or 10-day lead could be invaluable! I have observed this in my own
experiments on Romanesco broccoli and other vegetables where, within one and a half
months, the electrified plant group was approximately twice as tall as the normal plant
group. If these types of gains are possible in the very beginning of the plant's growth
period, then it makes sense that over the course of the plant's life, cumulative reductions in
growth time could be possible.
Enhanced Fruit Ripening
The acceleration effect can also be seen in the ripening process as well. Through a
quickening of enzymatic processes and the early synthesis of ripening hormones like
ethylene, it was discovered that fruits could actually ripen faster when placed under