Felix Smart conducts sunflower promotion
By Derek Winkler
Felix Smart, a Calgary-based company specializing in home gardening technology, has begun a promotion called “The Trump vs. Biden Plant Growth Test.” The initiative takes the form of a 30-day experiment during which the recorded voices of the two US presidents will be played to sunflower seeds sealed in seperate tents. The company’s sensor technology will measure factors such as pH, soil moisture, soil EC, soil temperature, light, air temperature and humidity in an effort to determine if either voice has an effect on the growth of the plants, as measured via a time-lapse camera. A third plant has been placed in a silent tent as a control. According to the company, the plant exposed to Trump’s voice has grown taller, while the plant exposed to Biden’s voice and the control plant have grown larger leaves.
“We created this test not for political reasons but to see if auditory stimulation from these polarizing politicians really could affect a living organism,” said company CEO Tom Lam. “We know from previous experiments that positive words vs negative words can have an impact on plant growth. The question for us was who had a more positive message and would this be reflected in the plant growth.”