Not sure if the electric involvement is too important as it is not the thrust of the study. A sort of afterthought. At https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250304164422.htm … research in the US on phosphorus in soil has discovered some electric activity involved. Nothing major – but it caught my eye.
Phosphorus is an important fertiliser for food crops, and garden plants, and plants in their natural habitat. It is a necessity. It is one of the three basic fertilisers that make up the ingredients of National Growmore. This was developed by scientists during WWII in the ‘Dig for Britain‘ campaign. Basically, in getting everyone digging up their lawns to grow potatoes the government soon realised there wasn’t enough animal manure available. Growmore was developed with potatoes in mind, in which phosphorus is important, but also for green vegetables [nitrogen via sulphate of ammonia], and of course, potash [to increase the yield of vegetables and fruits]. Growmore is still used extensively even in the modern world. It is often made abroad nowadays as fertiliser factories and Net Zero are averse to each other.
The thrust of the research article is about the discovery that phosphorus can be more palatable to plants by the use of iron oxides. It is an important discovery. Plants and microbes secrete enzymes to transform organic phosphorus into bio available inorganic phosphorus. The organic material comes the remains of plants, microbes that break down in the soil, and from animals [their dead bodies and their dung]. Chicken manure, for example, is a good source of phosphorus – but it is organic. Plants need inorganic phosphorus, we are told, which may explain why Growmore was so successful. Nowadays, the organic alternative, Fish, Blood, and Bone, is the preferred option amongst allotmenteers and gardeners. A lot of that is sourced from abattoirs or slaughterhouses. Vegans tend to hold up their noses. Bearing in mind plants developed, at an early stage, enzymes to convert organic phosphorus into inorganic phosphorus. This applies right across the world. The new discovery is that iron oxides can also convert organic phosphorus into inorganic phosphorus, the form in which plants can absorb it. In fact, the backbone of DNA and RNA contains phosphate. It is a fundamental of life of Earth. All plants require it in an inorganic format. That is why phosphorus, as a component of fertiliser, is important in agricultural soils and your average garden.
Plants evolved to use phosphorus in a simple form, we are told. The inorganic variety. It is a ready to use molecule that plants can easily consume and microprocess into their metabolism. Iron oxides trap phosphorus because they have a different electric charge. In oxides they are positively charged – but phosphorus itself, is negatively charged The wonder of the electrical process in nature.