The History of Growing with Electricity - Electro-Horticulture - page 21

certain types of plants(it would be nice if we knew which ones). He also came to the same
conclusion as Speschnew in demonstrating that his plants were predominantly free from
diseasebyconductingexperimentsthatwereinenvironmentswherethesurroundingplants
were badly affected by fungi 11 .
An Old Electroculture Experiment
Source: Häntzschel, Walter, The influence of electricity on plant growth (Ref)
In a different type of experiment that was verified at the Hatch Experiment Station in
Amherst, MA 12 , Professor Warner of the Agricultural College of Massachusetts in 1897
replicated the results of European researchers and discovered some new results of his own.
Inonegreenhouse, inwhich lettuce wasseverely affected bymildew,herananexperiment
to see if electricity would be a useful form of treatment. He sowed head lettuce over two
setsofstrandedwires,onesetcontaining fourstrandsandanotherninestrands,eachstrand
being half an inch apart. Two standard batteries generated a current of electricity through
the wires.
The following chart show the results of that experiment.
Prof Warner's Results - Lettuce Experiment
Interestingly enough, Warner found that the largest heads of lettuce were the ones over the
largestbundleofwiresandclosesttothebatteryterminal.Healsodiscoveredahighdensity
ofrootsaroundthewires“asiftheyfoundmaximumnourishmentaroundthewires.”When
thecurrentbecameweakorwasinterrupted,likelyduetothesoilbecomingdry,thelettuce
heads began to be affected by the mildew. This conclusion was the same as Fischer's, with