Well I'll be Damned.....there is a study..
Effects of Low-Power Microwave Fields on Seed Germination and Growth Rate Lakshmappa Ragha1 , Seema Mishra2 , V. Ramachandran2 , Manmohan Singh Bhatia3 1 Electronics and Telecommunication Department, SIES Graduate School of Technology, Nerul, Navi-Mumbai, India; 2 Bio Technology Department, SIES Indian Institute of Environment Management, Nerul, Navi-Mumbai, India; 3 Laser and Plasma Technology Divison, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India. Email:
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[email protected] Received January 2nd, 2011; revised March 14th, 2011; accepted April 22nd, 2011. ABSTRACT Experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of low power microwave radiation on germination and growth rate in seeds. In the present paper, the bioeffects of low power (non-thermal intensity) microwave modulated with 1 KHz square wave have been studied. Experiments were performed in X-band frequencies using klystron based microwave test bench. Microwave parameters like frequency, power, exposure time and power density were varied while irradiating seed samples to study their influence on germination. The seed samples used for the experiment included wheat (Triticum aestivum), bengal gram (Cicer arietinum), green gram (Vigna radiate) and moth bean (Vigna Aconitifolia). Seed germination %, plant height, root length and dry matter % (biomass %) were recorded and compared with control seeds. The effects of different treatments were found to be stimulating the germination and seedling vigour of plants especially in power and exposure time treatments while increase in frequency and power density has reduced the seed germination and seedling vigour. The effect also varied with the nature of seeds.
http://file.scirp.org/pdf/JEMAA20110500005_25633481.pdf
3. Results and Discussion The results discussed in this section are the effects of various parameters like exposure time, power, power density and frequency on seed germination and growth rate. Analysis is based on the results shown in Figures 1-4, Table 5 and Table 6. In case of wheat sample with increase in microwave frequency germination is seem to improve upto 60% whereas no germination observed at lower frequencies including control. High frequency stimulates seed germination for wheat. Similar but more pronounced effect noticed in the case of bengal gram. Seed germination is seem to improve even at lower frequencies as compared to control. With increase in frequency seed germination increases as compared to control. The extent of improvement is marginal and not as pronounced as in the case of wheat and bengal gram. Similar trend is noticed in the case of moth bean. Figure 1. Seed germination Vs Frequency. In case of wheat sample higher power intensely affects germination. With increase in microwave power germination is hampered and steadily decreases. Similar trend is noticed in case of green gram and moth bean. In case of bengal gram with increase in microwave power germination on the other hand improves. But at the highest power used no germination observed. Figure 2. Seed germination Vs Power. Decrease in seed germination is observed in all seed samples with increase in exposure time from 12 minute to 28 minute as compared to control group (Table 3). Decrease in seed germination is observed in almost all seed samples with decrease in power density from d1-d5 (Table 4) as compared to control group. But variation in power density has less influence on germination in case of green gram sample.