Plant and Snowflake Growth

[Jade]

Tree branches can grow together but usually don't. When a branch is surrounded or "trapped" by the electric field of neighboring branches it will take the path of least resistance. If it's internal charge and corresponding electric field is stronger than the electric field it is growing into, it will grow towards another branch. If it's electric field isn't strong enough, it's charged particles stop flowing and it dies (abscission). This is where I think most of the twigs and branches come from under a tree. Some healthy branches are broken off in the wind and you can see the fresh break. The abscission branches don't have a fresh break but appear scarred at the end. It may take the wind to knock them down, but they have been dead for awhile.

 

If you can envision a wheat field, each stalk grows vertically and has its own space. This implies a field effect. The stalks can get entangled by the wind, but normally the stalks don't touch each other.

 

Normally leaves don't want to be touching each either. However, leaves and stems are more flexible than branches and also attracted to sunlight (phototropism). The particles exiting the leaves could therefore be "attractive" to sunlight and because of the leafs large surface area, the attractive force pulls the leaf towards sunlight and maybe each other. Because leaves are flexible they can droop into each other also. Long narrow leaves come to mind. So their weight is a stronger force than the particles repulsive force.

 

Pine needles are similar to a wheat field in that they each make their own space. The difference from leaves is that they are stiffer and have less surface area and phototropism pull. They are repulsed by the larger charge in their branch and grow perpendicular away from it.

 

I think the reason a leaf "opens" is because the particles flowing in the veins of the two halves are repulsive to each other.

 

Good questions.

[Bignose]

This idea seems like a solution really in search of a problem. That is, I think you are so eager to apply what you think is "a field effect" you use it to describe effects that may just be more simply explained.

 

For example, wheat grows upward because a wheat plant that grows sideways receives lesser sunlight than its neighbors and would otherwise die off. I don't think that you need any kind of electromagnetic field effects to describe this. I also think that trees have evolved as a combination of strength & flexibility as well as also growing to take up space to ensure they get their share of the nutrients.

 

And sure, two branches don't usually grow together. But it does happen. Same with two or more trees growing together -- Growing up I used to love climbing the two trees that had grown together in my back yard. Again, if they are all charged the same, how is this even possible? For that matter, how can kudzu or a leaching vine grow on other plants? The repulsive force should completely prevent intertwined growth, because the growth is slow enough that the repulsion should keep them apart.

 

Frankly, can't this be easily answered just by taking an electromagnetic field monitor out to some plants? If the plant is really electrically/magnetically changed, moving the plant or a branch around should register on the EMF meter.

[mephox]

1. Wikipedia has some interesting info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis

2. And in fact it looks like Stanford is already doing something interesting here: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/april/electric-current-plants-041310.html

3. And an interesting brief on the role of copper in Photosynthesis (mainly in relation to deficiency vs. toxicity levels): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2634185/

 

Looking at the news release from Stanford, it looks like the amperage is so small that I don't think there's any consumer affordable ammeter capable of measuring a picoamp reliably. You might also try reducing or increasing a plant's copper diet through copper rich fertalizers to see the effect of that on your experiments. A higher or lower concentration in plants may effect the outcome since it one of the major components in electron transfer during photosynthesis in the form of the protein plastocyanin (3, 1).

 

Ryu said they were able to draw from each cell just one picoampere, an amount of electricity so tiny that they would need a trillion cells photosynthesizing for one hour just to equal the amount of energy stored in a AA battery. In addition, the cells die after an hour. Ryu said tiny leaks in the membrane around the electrode could be killing the cells, or they may be dying because they're losing out on energy they would normally use for their own life processes. One of the next steps would be to tweak the design of the electrode to extend the life of the cell, Ryu said.

(2)

 

I'd be interested in seeing what happens if the copper intake is regulated higher or lower.

[Edtharan]

The DLA pictures I googled appear "almost' plantlike. Limiting where the particles can attach partially mimics what I'm saying about repulsion between branches except there is no symmetry as displayed by both plants and snowflakes.

 

The computer simulations also lack symmetry.

 

The "Lichtenburg figures" (which are created with electrical forces) however do very closely model plant growth.

Actually, the best model for plant growth is Lindenmayer Systems (L Systems). Snowflakes are best represented by DLAs.

 

If you think about how a snowflake forms, it forms from a seed (a bit of dust or ice crystal, etc) then as it moves through the supercooled air/water mixture (eg a cloud), the molecules of water bump into the seed and "stick" to it becoming part of the flake. The growing flake and the water molecules in the air follow Brownian motion.

 

This is really a textbook case of what a DLA is.

 

Plants grow by cell division. When a cell divides genes inside it can be turned on or off due to chemical changes in the cell (driven by the products of the DNA that is turned on). This forms a state machine where the cell enters discrete states. In an L-System the system develops by stepping through a series of states based on the state and rules of the previous state.

 

This is the difference between L-Systems and DLAs. Sure, they might have some similarities of appearance if you cherry pick the cases. However, the way they form is very different, the processes involved are fundamentally different (one is based on probability, the other is based on a finite state machine).

[Jade]

1. Wikipedia has some interesting info. http://en.wikipedia..../Photosynthesis

2. And in fact it looks like Stanford is already doing something interesting here: http://news.stanford...nts-041310.html

3. And an interesting brief on the role of copper in Photosynthesis (mainly in relation to deficiency vs. toxicity levels): http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2634185/

 

Looking at the news release from Stanford, it looks like the amperage is so small that I don't think there's any consumer affordable ammeter capable of measuring a picoamp reliably. You might also try reducing or increasing a plant's copper diet through copper rich fertalizers to see the effect of that on your experiments. A higher or lower concentration in plants may effect the outcome since it one of the major components in electron transfer during photosynthesis in the form of the protein plastocyanin (3, 1).

 

(2)

 

I'd be interested in seeing what happens if the copper intake is regulated higher or lower.

 

Those are interesting websites. Maybe in the future I'll be able to do nutrient research in plants, but for now I need to stick on topic, and that is to find evidence of the unknown particle I believe is responsible for both plant and snowflake growth and geometry. I've done some specific tests trying to find evidence of the particle, but I don't have conclusive enough evidence to claim a proof.

This picture shows roots being attracted to humidity vapor coming from the lower corner, which makes sense until you realize that the water molecules can't electrostatic-ally pull the root unless they are connected enough by hydrogen bonds, which would require them to be polarized by an electric field. The other possibility is that the root senses the most concentrated part of the vapor cloud and heads for it. That also requires the root to strongly overcome geotropism with a different mechanism than the main stream geotropism theory.

 

 

 

[Edtharan]

This picture shows roots being attracted to humidity vapor coming from the lower corner, which makes sense until you realize that the water molecules can't electrostatic-ally pull the root unless they are connected enough by hydrogen bonds, which would require them to be polarized by an electric field. The other possibility is that the root senses the most concentrated part of the vapor cloud and heads for it. That also requires the root to strongly overcome geotropism with a different mechanism than the main stream geotropism theory.

Actually you don't need to invoke a new particle or anything like that. The answer is simple.

 

Above, I talked about L-Systems, and how they are a finite state machine. Finite state machines get inputs and change their state according to those inputs and their current internal state (so as the state changes, so to can their reaction to a given input).

 

If one side of the root get more water than the other, then this gives a gradient of water across the growing end of the root. The state change in the growing cells are that if one region has less water than another, then slow down growth in the region where there is less water. If the regions have equal water, then grow as normal.

 

This would cause the root to grow towards any region of high water density (such as water from a the humidifier).

 

Roots are the part of the plant that get nutrients and water from the soil. It makes sense that they would have the ability to sense and then grow towards where these things are. And, you don't need to propose an unknown and undetected patricle to ecplain it. It is just simple processes.

[Jade]

Thank you for your comments,

The below image mostly shows roots and geotropism, however the sharply curled root on the right tube is attracted to a water drop.

Because of surface tension forming the drop there are many exposed hydrogen bonds. And because the root tip reads voltage with the negative lead , the negative polarity charge at the root tip is electrostatic-ally attracted to the drops exposed hydrogen bonds. Given that simple model, it is logical to assume an electrostatic attraction to water vapor.

 

Edited March 16, 2012 by Jade