The Distribution of the Overhead Electrical Discharge Employed in Recent Agricultural Experiments

Abstract

1. It is shown that the strength of the discharge from an overhead wire network at a high potential is a variable quantity depending on the mobility of the carriers of the electricity and on the velocity of the wind. Attention has been drawn to the presence of radio-active disintegration products which may possibly be a complicating factor in the effect of the discharge upon plant growth.2. The maximum current density of the discharge in some experimental stations, where the apparatus is constructed after the pattern of the Agricultural Electric Discharge Co., is of the order 10–11amp./cm.23. Measurements of potential gradient and of current density agree in showing that the effect of the discharge is not limited to the area under the wires. This is of importance as control and electrified areas have usually been placed close together in field experiments. Some account is given of the distribution of the discharge under various weather conditions.4. Methods are discussed by which the control area may perhaps be kept under more normal electrical conditions in spite of the proximity of the overhead discharge wires. The results of some of the tentative efforts in this direction which were made at Dumfries during 1913 are briefly discussed.