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As far as I am aware, a plant does not have a magnetic field of any significant magnitude.

What I wonder is, is there any electromagnetic related basis for the crop spraying technique outlined in the science section of a generally highly regarded newspaper and listed below. If the idea was not associated with a university, I would not be asking the question.

Irish Times Crop Spraying Article :

...is a magnetic spraying technology that helps farmers grow more by using less. The system, which has been three years in development, gives better coverage than conventional crop spraying systems and also reduces spray drift by more than 80 per cent. [The company} is based at NovaUCD, (University College Dublin) the university’s centre for new ventures.

“The technology is based around attaching magnetic inserts onto a sprayer which sends an electromagnetic charge into the sprayed liquid,” “All living plants and soil have a magnetic field so the magnetically charged liquid is attracted to its target. The benefits of our technology include increased profitability, increased productivity and better environmental performance.” The company has worked closely with UCD to develop its system which has also been independently tested as far afield as Ethiopia, Kenya and the US.

However, this study, Plant's magnetic field strength is less than a millionth of Earths. seems, to me at least, to make the whole idea a non starter.

In an article in the Journal of Applied Physics, the UC Berkeley scientists describe.. their ultimate failure to detect a magnetic field. They established, however, that the plant generated no magnetic field greater than a millionth the strength of the magnetic field surrounding us here on Earth.

I appreciate that this may turn out to be a biology based question, but I can't immediately see, from a physics point of view, how this scheme could possibly work.

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  • At first blush I would ascribe this to the generally poor state of science 'journalism' anymore... – Jon Custer Apr 27 '16 at 19:41
  • The exact same s.c.a.m. has been used ten years ago in the US. s.c.a.m. is a technical acronym for this kind of stuff, but I forgot what it stands for... anyway, look at this: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2006/03/27/story5.html. :-) – CuriousOne Apr 27 '16 at 19:42

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Replace "magnetically charged" by "magically charged" - I would rather agree to that :) (and that's actually how I read it by mistake! ;))

Writing of magnetic charges (=monopoles) actually doesn't increase the plausibility.

I think it's just a hoax (I mean, that the university is involved, not the whole business) - though this word would be not appropriate, if there is something connected to this that is really funded by governmental money.
Actually, it reminds me of this question (or more directly, this website), about a perpetual motion machine. There I strongly suspect, that the "company" might have got governmental subsidies because they produce green energy - this is a magic term in Europe. Maybe here there might be also some save-the-environment-money involved???

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Ilja
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  • Hoax is the wrong word. Try calling the attorney general's office for the legally correct terms. – CuriousOne Apr 27 '16 at 19:44
  • @CuriousOne Ok, so I have my "tut tut, pschaw, humbug..." letter all ready to go in to the Irish Times, but it's generally a good paper. I am amazed at the College though, maybe "associated" just means "we have our mail sent there." Bit surprised at any real uni involvment. –  Apr 27 '16 at 19:53
  • Nothing stops you from researching the facts. You can call the college and ask for the details of their involvement. As you can see, a simple internet search shows that the same people have been involved with this in the US ten years ago, which tells you what's really going on. I bet with you that you can probably find magic crop dusting devices being "sold" to unsuspecting (naive) farmers in the early 20th or even late 19th century. :-) – CuriousOne Apr 27 '16 at 19:56
  • If you take the trouble to make the research, please let us know, okay? I would be interested, if there is more behind this than a company waiting for naive customers, and a naive journalist writing about it... – Ilja Apr 27 '16 at 20:27
  • @Ilja What I intend to do is ring the paper and then UCD's accounts department and send on this page by email, stressing the link CuriousOne posted, and ask them "are they involved financially with the company making the claims?". Hopefully, the journalist has overplayed UCD's involvement. I will post any reply here. –  Apr 27 '16 at 20:42
  • thank you :)

    (as I insinuated, there is also the possibility that the journalist is involved... but it would probably be hard to pin him on that...)

     – Ilja Apr 27 '16 at 20:56
  • It's not the first time a bona fide Uni gets entangled in something like this. A leading British Uni got caught up in a HHO scam, providing 'research' funds for it. – Gert Apr 27 '16 at 20:58
  • Thank you for the hint, @Gert, I googled it, didnt hear. Collecting such things would be worth a good question here, wouldn't it? – Ilja Apr 27 '16 at 21:29
  • @Ilja: interesting it would be but not really a question though... – Gert Apr 27 '16 at 22:41