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Enhancement of the Initial Growth Rate of Agricultural Plants by Using Static Magnetic Fields

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Annealing a magnetic cactus into phyllotaxis.

Cristiano Nisoli¹, Nathaniel M Gabor, Paul E Lammert

¹Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.

Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics

|May 21, 2010

Summary

Researchers demonstrate that phyllotactic patterns, seen in plants and physics, are a ground state. Mechanical annealing of a "magnetic cactus" experimentally reproduces these botanical patterns and their transitions.

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Area of Science:

Physics
Mathematics
Botany

Background:

Mathematical regularities in nature, such as phyllotaxis, have puzzled scholars for millennia.
Previous models suggested phyllotaxis arises from energy minimization in two-dimensional Bravais lattices.

Purpose of the Study:

To provide experimental and numerical evidence that phyllotactic lattices are a ground state.
To explore the general case of phyllotaxis in an axially unconstrained manner.

Main Methods:

Experimental mechanical annealing of a "magnetic cactus" to observe pattern formation.
Numerical simulations using a structural genetic algorithm.

Main Results:

Experimental results precisely reproduced botanical phyllotaxis and domain boundaries.
The structural genetic algorithm revealed both monojugate and multijugate phyllotactic patterns.

Conclusions:

The study confirms that phyllotactic lattices represent a ground state.
This work offers a unified understanding of phyllotaxis across biological and physical systems.