Conducting polymers take control of the field.

Abstract

In PNAS, Oikonomou et al. (1) introduce the concept of eSoil, a conducting polymer-based scaffold for the hydroponic culture of plants. They show that when eSoil is polarised, it accelerates the growth of barley seedlings by 50% after 15 days of growth. This is an exciting result that may one day enable to increase crop yields in a sustainable fashion. Although the underlying biological processes remain to be elucidated, a key message from this work is the fact that conducting polymers enable a controlled way to study and direct the biology of plants.