Plug That Bamboo, Bush Or Tree Into The Power Grid.

Experiments Showing Plants Do Directly Produce an Electric Current Lex Loeb Contributor Network . A Year or more ago I was curious if plants did not have an electric current of some sort as they are solar energy harvesting organisms. My initial experiment was with bamboo rooted in the ground. I stuck the red and black points of an amp meter into various parts of the bamboo stalk and immediately saw the needle in the amp meter jump. I double checked, disconnecting the amp meter to be sure it had no batteries in it. None at all. The curious effect was not enough power to do much of any work. The next experiments were to see if I could cut green stalk bamboo put it in water, salt water, sugar water, to see if I could some variation in the electric discharge. None really was observed. I also wanted to know if the electric output increased when the sun was out and shining or not and that also came back negative. Cut green bamboo in water was little different than that rooted in the ground. Sunnier times of day were no more effective than darker times I did not read the amp meter in the dark however. At that point the only thing I knew is that there is potential and probably a lot more potential than immediately realized. A friend of mine created a hoax photograph of a tree wired up to a home to feed it 110 or 220 volt electric power. That actually was funny then but now my results have been apparently verified by researchers wiring up big leaf maples. The big leaf maple is a relative of the sugar maple that produces maple syrup. I might guess that a sugar maple might even produce a more substantial flow of electric current because of the nature of sugar. with bamboo the electrodes or pointy red and black tips of a volt meter or amp meter can be stuck straight though the soft new shooting bamboo instead of having to drive nails in and the effect is even observed after that part of the bamboo is removed and stuck in a vase of water. I think i got a slightly higher output by putting one electrode in the bamboo and one directly into the water below the puncture point on the upper part of the bamboo. I did not concentrate the current with a batter or capacitor because the meter already showed something was happening but not enough to hook up a tiny LED light which was yet another negative. This is an experiment you can try yourself at home. The Washington researchers fed the current into a converter to boost its effectiveness. I was not looking for an immediate practical use yet because my hunch is that some sort of battery like brine or sugar water perhaps with the roots of the plants in contact with it might do better than their experiment did. My research is not done yet. A higher net effect might just come from Algae filled water in containers where it might be possible to change the ion balance/ status of the water when the sun shines. One other plants I would definitely stick my electrodes into would be kelp and some other see weed species and that is because of the higher mineral content of kelp with high concentrations of potassium and iodine. The banana plant is also an interesting candidate because of its high water content and I would try it out on fast growing sugar cane too. The Washington researchers say they can boost the power from big leaf maple trees enough to get a 1.1 volt output which is definitely better than what I was seeing. So Far as I know they have not tried Bamboo yet. My next experiment is with green pond algae. The theory goes that since photosynthesis is a form of solar energy collecting and an efficient one which we know is involved in carbon fixing or taking carbon out of the air in the form of carbon dioxide and creating bio mass out of it which is mostly in the form of sugar, starch and cellulose. It might be possible to interfere in the process of plants to take some of their surplus energy that otherwise goes into growing their physical mass and taking a cut of it. One can imagine perhaps taking some sugar water out of sugar cane while it still is growing and converting that to burning fuel. The electrical potential of plants if can be bumped up when the sun is shining might mean it could be possible to take some percentage of the growth of the plants away from them and divert it to human uses without really harming the plant though necessarily limiting its growth potential. We know that trees and other plants grow more some years than others and they are just as able to survive with less beneficial growing conditions. I have not tried it yet but bamboo has internal cavities where ion rich water or sugar water can be injected sealed and maybe a real higher powered battery effect can be shown to exist. When I cut open bamboo I never find these cavities filled with fluid. I would also add some trace elements of various heavy elements plants like as nutrients like iron and elements from fertilizers including nitrogen , potassium, iodine, phosphorous. Instead of cutting the bamboo from the root I might find someway to pool water around the outside of the stalks for an electrode connection and maybe run a copper filament wire though the bamboo or wrap the exterior with it because of the tendency of electricity to travel on the outer skin of metal objects in particular. Long before this I wondered if Cats were magnetic but never got very far with those experiments. I noticed that the cat seemed to be able to sense the magnetism of a magnet with it's eyes closed especially near the ends of the whiskers. I had a control which were non magnetic object, metals with the cats eyes closed. There maybe some reality that cats can sense magnetism to a fair degree but I cannot tell you for sure. I bring up the cats and the magnetism because it might actually be possible to take living bamboo wire it for the current effect I have already observed and translate that into magnetic field maybe even with spray on iron dust or gold leaf stuck to the exterior of the living bamboo poles. Before trying that I need to go do the algae tests maybe with both salt and fresh and brackish water algae plants or water plant that has both below water and above water green flesh attributes at the same time that is because I am looking for a ion gradient between the various parts of the same plant. I have never heard of anyone receiving a static electric shock from any land or water plant which make me skeptical about the thesis but then I have seen the amp meter current myself in my other experiments and the University of Washington Woodstock researchers seem to be on to the very same thing. .