Radio-treated water eliminates need for fertilizer, pesticides?

Cash · #1 09/02/13, 01:19 PM

This rings a bell with me from many years ago, perhaps something I read in the Mother Earth News way back when. This time around it seems far more credible, coming as it does in the Irish Independent newspaper and quoting some apparently respectable university researchers. The writing style is definitely over the top, though. Has anyone else heard of this or have any experience with it?

http://www.independent.ie/business/i...-29525621.html

Quote:

25 August 2013

A groundbreaking new Irish technology which could be the greatest breakthrough in agriculture since the plough s set to change the face of modern farming forever.

The technology – radio wave energised water – massively increases the output of vegetables and fruits by up to 30 per cent.

Not only are the plants much bigger but they are largely disease-resistant, meaning huge savings in expensive fertilisers and harmful pesticides.

Extensively tested in Ireland and several other countries, the inexpensive water treatment technology is now being rolled out across the world. The technology makes GM obsolete and also addresses the whole global warming fear that there is too much carbon dioxide in the air, by simply converting excess CO2 into edible plant mass.

More at the link.

Appalachia · #2 09/02/13, 01:36 PM

Intriguing, but if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

geo in mi · #3 09/02/13, 03:44 PM

Methinks he hath kissed the blarney stone.

geo

wharton · #4 09/02/13, 04:05 PM

Apparently, both the good professor and the university are real. Two question seem to arise if you Google a bit. Why would a legitimate article link to somebody sell magical water conditioning devices, and did somebody manage to pull a world class scam on one of the more reliable European newspapers? The other issue is that appears that the professor might be a bit of a flake with some real paranoid, off the charts medical theories involving antibiotics, how they cause disease, and other issues. All things considered, this one doesn't look too promising.

rambler · #5 09/02/13, 09:08 PM

Of course it is all true.

Finally someone broke though the govt and corporate conspericies that have kept this under cover.

Paul

Harry Chickpea · #6 09/02/13, 10:40 PM

I'm not willing to write this one off just yet. It is within reason that he has a weak variation of the Ostwald process going and has realized that there is no need to further refine the output if it is in water going to plants already.

Water has an extremely unusual range of properties, to the point that if you think the universe was planned and designed, water is the tour-de-force.

PURE water will etch away glass bottles. If you have an acid, it isn't the acid molecule itself that has the activity, but the arrangement of water in conjunction with it. Water is the only substance that densifies as it cools and then suddenly begins expanding just before reaching a solid state. There ARE peer reviewed double-blind studies that show homeopathy works. The list of oddities goes on for pages.

I'm not saying that the above story is absolutely real, but I am saying it passes the initial sniff test and may be factual.

65284 · #7 09/03/13, 10:45 PM

If it's as simple as it sounds, with all of he radio type waves zipping around the atmoshpere, seems like the rain would fall as radio wave treated water.

Kaufarmer · #8 09/03/13, 11:39 PM

If it were true, then some company would be selling radio wave treated water in the garden section of Walmart! And they'd be making a killing.....millionaires , no billionaires, within the year. Or it would be for sale as "Seen on TV". So since I haven't seen it for sale, it can't be true.

...Su Ba
www.kaufarmer.blogspot.com

Harry Chickpea · #9 09/04/13, 12:43 AM

Actually... rain from thunderstorms IS radio treated water AND it DOES have increased nitrates from the ionization of the air by lightning, and the rain water is a significant source of nitrates for crops and the landscape!

The type of radio humans use to communicate are not the same, although even at the lower voltages some of them can create ozone and changes in the property of air near a strong transmitter.

The more I consider this, the less skeptical I am. The primary use of nitrates during the time that radio was big was for explosives for World War 1. During that time there were about three processes for creating nitrogen compounds, but the end goal was always to get a concentrated form for use in munitions. It was only a little later that the use of nitrogen fertilizers became popular, with the reduced cost of fertilizer from the Haber process. The idea expressed in the article is exactly the type of concept that time would forget as useless in the rush forward. "Yeah, you can make water have a little nitrogen in it. What use it it? You can't effectively sell it or transport it."

It is no panacea, as most agriculture uses irrigation only as needed. The huge fields around here would have no way of benefiting. However, a small garden or an area that depends upon irrigation might derive a lot of benefit. For example, this type of application would limit the salt buildups that often occur with non-organic fertilizer.

I doubt the process is patentable at this late date, and because it eliminates the need for a product, it is not going to be promoted by oil companies (which create nitrogen fertilizer out of natural gas and sell it at a profit).

MichaelK! · #10 09/04/13, 08:36 AM

A fool and his money are soon parted! Amazing how true this simple line remains!

sleuth · #11 09/04/13, 08:42 AM

So, it sounds like an experiment is in order. How do we produce this water at home?

rambler · #12 09/04/13, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harry Chickpea

Actually... rain from thunderstorms IS radio treated water AND it DOES have increased nitrates from the ionization of the air by lightning, and the rain water is a significant source of nitrates for crops and the landscape!

The type of radio humans use to communicate are not the same, although even at the lower voltages some of them can create ozone and changes in the property of air near a strong transmitter.

The more I consider this, the less skeptical I am. The primary use of nitrates during the time that radio was big was for explosives for World War 1. During that time there were about three processes for creating nitrogen compounds, but the end goal was always to get a concentrated form for use in munitions. It was only a little later that the use of nitrogen fertilizers became popular, with the reduced cost of fertilizer from the Haber process. The idea expressed in the article is exactly the type of concept that time would forget as useless in the rush forward. "Yeah, you can make water have a little nitrogen in it. What use it it? You can't effectively sell it or transport it."

It is no panacea, as most agriculture uses irrigation only as needed. The huge fields around here would have no way of benefiting. However, a small garden or an area that depends upon irrigation might derive a lot of benefit. For example, this type of application would limit the salt buildups that often occur with non-organic fertilizer.

I doubt the process is patentable at this late date, and because it eliminates the need for a product, it is not going to be promoted by oil companies (which create nitrogen fertilizer out of natural gas and sell it at a profit).

If you want to confuse this thread with facts....

You are talking about maybe 2 lbs of N per acre. A late spring snowfall does the same, on the few crops that aren't killed by a late snow.

Field Corn requires about a lb of N to make a bu of corn. So it would add 1-2% to the yield. Hardly earth shattering. One adds 120 - 200 lbs of N to a corn field to get the ecconomical yields we aim for.

As well the N fertilzes weeds, so it would help, not hurt, weed growth.

Now nature has a lot of free massive power. A snowfall or a lightening storm uses massive, huge amount of power to make a whopping 2 lbs of N. hey I like getting it, not knocking the free N no matter how little it is!

The radio waves you need to do the same would cost many dollars.

-That- is why no one is actually doing this. It is a neat natural phenomena, but it is hugely energy inefficient to try to do. Massive power for very little actual fertilizer.

The big oil companies do a much better and cheaper job making N from natural gas. It is similarly created using energy, but much much more efficient than the radio waves would be.

And it does nothing to control weeds, and it only supplies a tiny bit of N, none of the P, K, lime, zinc, boron, sulphur, ot other micro nutrients needed.

So yes, you have a tiny kernel of truth in there, but the claims made are just ludicrously silly. And it cannot be replicated for 'free', it takes much more energy than what actual commercial fertilizer, or composted manure uses.

A fun thread anyhow.

And, I would be worried about the radio waves strong enough to make 'free' N fertilizer might penitrate my tin foil hat.......

Paul

texican · #13 09/04/13, 02:16 PM

I've got the American franchise...

Please send your credit card number, your bank account number, title to your house... or better yet, a nice new woodburning cookstove... or a brick of 22lr shells (can find unicorns easier than a store stocked with 22 shells)... and then I'll send you everything you need to break the laws of physics. That pesky old Conservation of Energy Law should be broken, as often as possible.

Harry Chickpea · #14 09/04/13, 03:07 PM

Paul, a few more little factoids to insert.

Lightning is horrendously fast.
If a bolt of lightning has a peak power of 1TW for 30 microseconds, this only corresponds to an energy content of about 8000 Watt-hours, the amount needed to power a 100 watt light bulb for a little over a month.

The first attempts to create nitrogen compounds from the air were done close to here, near the Muscle Shoals dam, using its power to create electric arcs in a compressed atmosphere. The technology was similar to that of a lightning bolt. It WAS inefficient and abandoned almost immediately. Henry Ford got involved, but that is another story.

Please note that I reference the Ostman process, which uses a platinum catalyst to be much more efficient than the brute strength approach.

Liquid fertilizers with ammonia, granular ammonium nitrate and such all also work with weeds as well as crops. (or did you forget that/

)

Much nitrogen fertilizer is lost to the air, in part because of the high concentrations. Of the hundred pounds you add to a field, only a percentage gets used and is not part of a release to the atmosphere or adding to the contamination of ground water. A lower concentration may actually find greater plant uptake.

There are major issues with excess P & K in groundwater, but that is an unrelated argument anyway.

I'm in agreement that for commercial large-scale agriculture this idea may be marginal. I'm not willing to say yet that it doesn't have benefit beyond the cost.

If you want a real argument along those lines, look at the cost benefits of maglev trains vs. steel wheel. Maglev is far more pie in the sky science than what we are discussing here.

ksfarmer · #15 09/04/13, 05:03 PM

:rotfl :

lordoftheweeds · #16 09/04/13, 05:11 PM

Wouldn't it be just as effective to put a radio in the garden while you water to serenade both the plants and the water?

fordy · #17 09/04/13, 08:17 PM

...............I've ran naked through thunderstorms , all my parts being well ionized , but nothing came of IT ! How , may times mist a true believer subject himself to 'Ionization' before miracles happen ? ,lol , fordy

Harry Chickpea · #18 09/04/13, 09:23 PM

The fun thing about this for me is that I have no pony in the race. I am thoroughly enjoying the comments while recognizing that there is not a SHRED of science backing them up.

I am pointing out possibilities, the nay-sayers are pointing out personal bias. Very entertaining.

joebill · #19 09/04/13, 09:47 PM

I, too, have no dog in this fight, but predict that even if it had validity it would go nowhere at all. No good way to present it that doesn't make excellent comedy. Hard to sell stuff to folks who are laughing too hard to hear you.

Once again, I am positively too ignorant of the science involved to render an opinion, but i don't like the odds on this. Radio, water, agriculture are all pretty old for an "Amazing breakthrough" to have slipped through the cracks this long.

I'd position it's validity right down there with man-made global warming....Joe

Tabitha · #20 09/07/13, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harry Chickpea

The fun thing about this for me is that I have no pony in the race. I am thoroughly enjoying the comments while recognizing that there is not a SHRED of science backing them up.

I am pointing out possibilities, the nay-sayers are pointing out personal bias. Very entertaining.

, Harry,have you heard of Victor Schauberger?

a link to Prof. Masura Emoto who takes pictures of water crystals under certain circumstances.

http://www.whatthebleep.com/water-crystals/