Impact of Biofield Treatment on Growth and Anatomical Characteristics of Pogostemon cablin (Benth.)

Pogostemoncablin is a known aromatic plant which is cultivated for its essential oil widely applicated in perfumery and cosmetic industries. In the present study, the effect of biofield treatment was studied on the growth of P. cablin. For this study an in-vitro culture system was set up in two groups, viz., control and treatment, each of which was derived from three different explant sources, namely leaf, node and petiole. Further these in-vitro plantlets were hardened and transferred to external environment. The stomatal cells and epidermal hair growth were also studied at various morphogenetic stages. The study revealed that a single spell of biofield energy treatment produced significant increase in growth in treated group throughout all the morphogenetic phases from in-vitro to in vivo level. A remarkable increase in stomatal cells and epidermal hair was also seen in treated group.

The biofield energy transferred to in vitro cultures of P. cablin was observed to show significant effect on plant growth at different morphogenetic stages. In the initiation phase ST was found to be comparable to control. Though in multiple shoot proliferation phase the treatment showed varied effect on cultures derived from all the three explants in terms of biomass yield, a significant effect was seen in plantlet regeneration phase where total number of plantlets regenerated in treated group was nearly thrice than that of control group. There were certain changes which were seen in plants treated with ST. It was observed that morphologically treated plants were healthier as compared to control. Similarly I o response, less days required for regeneration, increase m root and shoot number and increase in biomass were some of the evidently seen effects in treated cultures which were significant when compared with their respective control cultures.

Microscopic study of stomata and epidermal hairs further supported the superiority of treated plants over control. From in vitro to in vivo phases, a gradual decrease in light intensity results in decrease in stomatal index in all plants. Further as the light intensity increases during progressive hardening phases there is a gradual increase in stomatal index in all plants. Thus, stomatal index is found to be directly correlated to light intensity in sunounding conditions. This is in correlation to previous studies which showed that increase in light intensity results in increase in stomatal index (Lake et al., 2001 Study of epidermal hairs showed similar increases in treated plants in later phases of hardening. Also this number was high when compared to control plants. Increase in glandular hairs would directly contribute to increase in oil yield in treated plants. This increase in essential oil content as a result of biofield treatment will add to the economic value of the P. cablin plants which can be further subjected to large scale cultivation.

Till date, very few findings are available in which work was conducted to study the effect of biofields on living systems in vitro. Researchers have worked upon the effect of Reiki treatment on bacterial cultures with respect to its healing context (Rubik et al., 2006). Also the effect of music, noise and sound has been studied in seed germination assays (Creath and Schwartz, 2004). However, this is for the first time that attempts were made to study the effect of biofield treatment on the entire regeneration phase of a plant in in vitro system. It was observed that a single spell of energy transfer in treated group is effective in enhancing the growth to a significantly higher rate as compared to the control group in P. cablin plants. However, these observations are in respect to the effect of biofield treatment at various morphogenetic stages at in vitro and acclimatization phases. Further these regenerated plantlets will be subjected to screening methods at morphological, phytochemical and molecular levels. These further studies may reveal a deeper impact of the biofield energy on plant systems at various levels.