Influence of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields on plant health and growth

Project management: Institute of Crop Sciences and Resource Conservation, Rheinische Friedrich - Wilhelms - University of Bonn
Start: 01.10.2023
End: 30.09.2025
Funding: 503,452.00 Euro

Background

The public often expresses concern that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields of mobile communications could damage plants. There is no proven scientific evidence for such a relationship.

The proposal for the research project arose from the results of the international BfS workshop on environmental effects of electromagnetic fields, which took place in Munich in 2019. Among others, the results showed that there is insufficient knowledge about the effects of radiofrequency fields on plants.

Laboratory studies at the University of Angers (France) showed increased expression of certain messenger substances in plants and changed energy metabolism and gene expression (conversion of genetic information) under exposure to electromagnetic fields. These processes are regarded as stress reactions. A replication study will be carried out to follow these indications.

Objective

The influence of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields on plants will be investigated under laboratory conditions in reverberation chambers. Plants of different species will be exposed to defined radiofrequency fields up to the limit value for mobile phone base stations. Short and medium-term exposures will be tested on tomatoes and roses, like in the French study.

Biochemical changes, stress reactions, protein and gene expression and growth will be investigated.

Implementation

At the beginning of the study, the current state of scientific knowledge on the effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields on plants will be documented in a review of scientific literature.

The simultaneous exposure of several plants will be performed in a reverberation chamber. Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields with a frequency of 900 megahertz (MHz) and electric field strengths of 0 volts per meter (V/m) (control - sham exposure), 5 V/m and 40 V/m will be applied. The exposure lasts 15 minutes in each case and is blinded.

Samples of exposed and sham exposed tomatoes are taken 0, 15, 30 and 60 minutes after the end of exposure. A positive control is achieved by damaging a leaf. Gene expression will be examined and changes in the expression of individual genes will be assigned to the associated signalling pathways. If an effect will be found, it will be checked whether it is a systemic effect. This would mean that the exposure of a single leaf would cause a reaction of the entire plant.

In the case of roses, the speed of growth and the orientation of the branches will be observed after exposure.

The verification of the previous results is relevant to the question of whether radiofrequency fields can influence the health of plants.