Hello all!
I found an interesting research paper that found treating water with a wifi router before watering makes the pepper plant stunted! I know some people here like to treat their water with PEMF before drinking it. I also know not all frequencies are the same, so maybe 2.4gHz just doesnt something bad to the water, while PEMF does something good. But I am really confused as to mechanism of energy storage in the water, and how that effects the plants! I just wanted ya’lls thoughts.
Thanks for posting this Zengineer!
The water in this study was exposed to a level of EMR that I consider very high—170.22 W/m2 is well into the red danger zone on my EMR meter. By comparison my cellphone never goes higher than 0.1 W/m2 which is in the green (supposedly safe) zone and I only use it with “radiation safe air-tube headphones” (Incidentally, using the same meter to test the M1 the radiation is below 0.01 W/m2. We already know that high power radiation is dangerous and we believe low power EMF to be beneficial but as has been stated many, many times in this forum the evidence for the alleged benefits of EMF and PEMF is anecdotal only…as far as I know anyway. At least I have not seen any well designed experimental designs demonstrating its effectiveness. Many of us, including myself think low power PEMF is beneficial, and I especially think it helps reduce inflammation, but, the evidence as far as I know is anecdotal only)…
Anyway, there are some serious methodological flaws in the design of this study, and all we can really surmise is that something happened that may or may not have had something to do with the water. Specifically, the design did not state whether whoever watered the plants was blinded to whether the plants were in the experimental group versus the control group so I will assume the blinding did not occur. This is such a serious flaw that in my opinion it renders all the meticulously gathered data and analysis useless. Why? Because it is quite possible that if whoever watered the plants knew which were which that alone could account for enhanced growth. Think of it this way—imagine giving all the plants the same water but telling the person doing the watering something like the plants in black pots get this toxic irradiated water and the plants in these yellow pots get this fresh non-toxic water (when in fact the water is the same). The expectation of the watering person could influence the growth of the plants. How? We do not know but it is quite possible that somehow human expectation could influence plant growth.
The study also did not state whether the plants were randomly assigned to experimental versus control groups or how this was done. It may have happened but it casts doubt on the validity of the research for the authors to omit this information.
I hope this helps, I hate to be so critical but this is my honest critique.
Robert
Methodological flaws are common throughout science, sadly. The possible effects of PEMF on water are interesting but remain unclear to me.
I recently published a paper on the effects of PEMF applied directly to several types of seeds, including Jupiter Bell pepper.
https://www.josam.org/josam/article/view/58
In this paper I note that the effects of PEMF were characterized by a reverse hormesis effect. I describe this in detail, but briefly, for the dosage of PEMF:
Too little is BAD
Too much is BAD
there is a range in the middle that is GOOD
While I also did careful and extensive blinding during this study (perhaps too much!), the most serious methodological flaw in most PEMF studies is the lack of a clear definition of the dose of PEMF applied. As you can clearly see from the paper I cite, the dosage itself will define whether the results are beneficial, harmful, or not significant at all.
And it is my opinion that this fundamental flaw makes about 97-98% of the scientific literature on PEMF essentially useless.