CHEAP NITRATES

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4433, 12 September 1939, Page 3

CHEAP NITRATES

PRODUCED BY ELECTRICITY

A small tractor traversed a test plot of ground on the edge of the city of Los Angeles recently, carrying with it a motor-driven generator and transformer that delivered 15,000 volts of low ami>erage electricity into the fresh furrows opened by the cultivator teeth. It was the first test of a machine that may write a new chapter in the history of farming, for the action of the electric current on the soil, according to chemical analysis, changes the free nitrogen in the soil air, and that in solution in the soil moisture, to nitrates that are available for plant food. An increase in nitrates of as much as 40 per cent, has been recorded after treatment. . Commercial production of nitrate tor fertiliser by passing a current of air through an electric arc is a well-known process, and the action of_ the 15,000volt current on the soil moisture seems to be along the same hue. But there is an additional ionisation reaction that produces interesting results. For instance, the concentration of available nitrates in the soil treated increases for at least 48 hours after the charge has been applied. And the tiny electrical currents that are always present in the earth, and may be measured with sensitive instruments, are reversed in the treated soil. Experiments in electric stimulation of plant culture have been carried on for many years, particularly in England and India, where noteworthy increases in crop yield have been reported. . The machine is the invention of Fred W. Opp, of Costa Mesa, California. who has been experimenting with electric plant culture for a decade. He has worked with radium emanations, with high frequencies, and with electrically charged irrigating water, and he looks forward to a time when electric fertilisation will play a dominant role in agriculture.