ELECTRIFIED SEEDS GREAT BRITAIN.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 31, Issue 27, 8 April 1919, Page 4

ELECTRIFIED SEEDS GREAT BRITAIN.

During the 1918 harvest in Great Britain some remarkable results were obtained from “electrified seeds.” Mr H. E. Fry, an electrical engineer in Dorset, England, has developed a process of stimulating seeds so that they yeild healthier and more prolific crops, the process consists of soaking the seeds in a solution of common salt, sending a current of electricity through the solution, and subsequently drying the seeds. Trials have been made with electrified wheat, barley, and oats in comparison with non-eleetrifi’ed seeds from the same sack, and sown on adjoining ground. The electrified seeds threw up more straws, which were so much stronger than the normal that they withstood storms which laid the non-electrified. harvest low. The gain in yield per acre varied in different parts of the country from five to nearly twenty bushels per. acre for oats, and from about five to seven bushels for wheat. Barley showed an increase of sixteen bushels in another recorded case. Twenty-seven farmers in South. Devon realised an average gain per acre of £4 13s, after deducting the cost of treatment, which is only a few shillings per sack. Thus the latest British contribution to the promising science of electroculate is being investigated by the sub-committee of the Board of Agriculture of Great Britain, which is making a scientific study of the influence of electricity on plant life.