Study of effect of AC and DC magnetic fields on growth of Pisum sativum seeds

¹ Faculty of Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Garmsar Branch, Iran
² Faculty of Plasma Physics, Islamic Azad University, Sciences and Research Campus, Tehran, Iran
³ Faculty of Physics, Khajeh Nasir University, Tehran, Iran

^a e-mail: mahmoodbahar@yahoo.com

Received: 25 August 2012
Revised: 15 April 2013
Accepted: 18 April 2013
Published online: 27 August 2013

Abstract

This paper concentrates on the effect of the AC and DC magnetic fields on plant growth. The effect of AC magnetic field with intensities of 2.25, 1.66 and 1.49 mT and DC magnetic field with intensities of 3.6, 2.41 and 2.05 mT in exposure durations of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 min on two groups of dry and wet Pisum sativum seedlings was studied. In each experiment 10 seeds were used; the experiments were repeated three times for each group and there was a sham exposed group for comparison purposes. The light cycle was 12 h light/12 h darkness and the temperature was 25 ± 1° C. The index of growth is considered to be the root and stem elongation on the sixth day. It was observed that AC magnetic field has a positive effect on the growth in all durations and intensities. Moreover, it is highlighted that during the experiments, the mean growth of dry seedlings significantly increased by a factor of 11 in AC magnetic field with the lowest intensity of 1.49 mT (p < 0.05). It was also shown that AC magnetic fields had a more positive effect on the growth of plants in comparison to DC magnetic fields.