Influence of electrostatic fields on plant respiration

Autor: G. F. Asprey, G. H. Sidaway
Rok vydání: 1968
Předmět:
Zdroj: International Journal of Biometeorology. 12:321-329
ISSN: 1432-1254
0020-7128
Popis: A series of experiments was carried out to test for alterations in the respiration of various types of plant material on exposure to artificial electrostatic fields in the range 5–10 kv/m.Respiration was measured both by constant volume manometry and by continuous flow Infra-Red gas analysis. Under conditions where the plant material was in contact with a liquid medium,considerable increases in 02 uptake were noted. These observations could be explained on the basis of electrolytic dissociation effects in the external medium; similar effects would be expected to occur in plants growing under natural conditions.A definite electrostatic influence on respiration was also observed, however, in the absence of any external liquid medium; this may be a direct response to the presence of the electric field. Both "fine weather" positive and "reversed" negative fields were effective, the negative fields having perhaps a greater tendency to stimulate respiration than the positive. Field reversals frequently altered the rate of respiration and it is therefore unlikely that the observations were due solely to the action of gaseous by-products of the electric discharge.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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