Quote:Magnets don't work that way, plants are not magnetropic, that would be the exceeding simple to test under scientific method conditions.
What is interesting though is, that magnets attract the oxygen nearby. But this is certainly only a local effect. To have any effect on a plant, I would imagine you would need a huge ass magnet and/or a very smart modification of the local field lines around the plant.
But I could well think this explains many "supernatural" folklore regarding magnets (e.g. stuff degenerating at a different rate, or tasting differently, ...), especially in earlier times when people had big horse shoe magnets. As with modern neodymium magnets you can hardly observe this phenomenon anymore as their field is closed very locally around the magnet, due to the form of these magnets (which is very flat, as they have such a strong coercivity that they do not need a special form to preserve their magnetization).
Interestingly against popular belief the total strength of the magnet is only indirectly important regarding the attraction of gaseous oxygen, important is the local gradient. That's why you see many totally fail or only get a minuscule effect from neodymium magnets (or a stack thereof) as they have a totally wrong field line configuration to show this effect. A simple old weak horse shoe magnet OTOH easily shows the effect much more drastic...(e.g. with stronger ones you can even split the flame in two)
But it is a fun fact, which was discovered in Volta's time when someone observed that a flame gets repelled by a magnet. But Volta then extensively studied its effects (with a big ass electromagnet). Strangely many of today's physicists do not know this effect anymore and sometimes even deny its existence. Lol, you will find even some who will calculate for you that magnets cannot have an effect on gaseous oxygen...obviously not knowing this early more than 100 year old knowledge with easy experiments (e.g. dragging oxygen soap bubbles or repelling nitrogen soap bubbles with a magnet) showing how wrong they and their calculations are...
BTW: This even gets used sometimes today in the analysis of car exhausts, to measure oxygen levels, by basically having it run through two equal pipes. One pipe has magnets, and therefore the oxygen gets attracted to the walls and hinders the flow. By the flow difference, you can calculate the oxygen concentration.
But I drifted far too offtopic sorry....
I claim not that this is the truth. As this is just what got manifested into my mind at the current position in time on this physical plane. So please feel not offended by anything I say.