There is a woman, a scientist, who has been studying homoeopathy and the application of homoeopathic principles in the plant field for over thirty years. She is Lucietta Betti, former tenured researcher and lecturer in plant pathology at the Department of Agri-Environmental Sciences and Technologies of the University of Bologna, now retired but called back by the University to carry forward a project in agro homoeopathy, precisely by virtue of her expertise in the subject. We met her to hear about the results and future projects connected to her research. And we discovered that — as countless studies published in specialist scientific journals confirm — one thing is certain: agro homoeopathy works; plants respond to the application of homoeopathic medicines by becoming stronger and developing more nutrients and antioxidants. This disproves the theory that positive results in homoeopathy depend solely on the placebo effect.

Agro homoeopathy — what does it involve?
Agro homoeopathy is simply the application of homoeopathic principles to agriculture, and therefore to plants. In this field there is very little in the way of experimental work, unlike homoeopathy in the medical field, which has existed since the late 18th century and is supported by a great many reference texts. We are therefore at the very beginning of this discipline. By applying homoeopathic principles to plants, using high dilutions of the active ingredient, we can say that we are operating within the field of sustainable agriculture, which does not pollute the environment.

What advantages can plant models offer to basic research in homoeopathy?
The main advantage that led me to begin this research about thirty years ago is that plants, having no nervous system, cannot be influenced from a psychological standpoint, and are therefore immune to the placebo effect. The objection always raised by those who do not believe in the efficacy of homoeopathy is precisely that it acts on the back of the placebo effect, even when applied to animals as well as people. Plants tell us that this is not the case: if we detect a significant and repeatable effect in proven and validated experimental models, this is certainly due to a direct effect of the treatment we have applied. The result therefore does not depend on the placebo effect.

Which plants did you work with, and which medicines?
Our basic model was the germination and in vitro growth of wheat seedlings; the medicine used most was Arsenicum album, prepared by us. We worked with arsenic trioxide and brought it to many different decimal dilutions, starting from ponderal dilutions such as the fifth decimal and going all the way to the 60th decimal. The most significant and most reproducible effects were obtained with the 45th decimal, thus with a dilution well beyond Avogadro's number — an ultra-dilution. There were no longer any molecules of arsenic, of active ingredient, in the preparation we gave to the plants. We created a model using both healthy seeds and seeds "stressed" by means of ponderal doses of arsenic at 0.1 per cent. The stress caused by ponderal arsenic induced hyperoxidation, a form of intoxication in the seed, causing it to germinate less and the seedling to grow far less as well. By treating the stressed seeds with homoeopathic arsenic, we found that germination was stimulated in a significant manner, as was seedling growth. As a final experiment we carried out molecular biology studies, which showed that treatment with arsenic at the 45th induces an epigenetic effect: in the stressed seeds there was a hyperexpression of a great many gene classes, which with the ultra-dilute arsenic treatment moved back towards normality — without reaching that of the healthy seeds, but nonetheless reducing significantly. The reduction in hyperexpression is the explanation for why, from a morphological standpoint, we were seeing an increase in germination and seedling growth.

How important is dynamisation within these trials?
Dynamisation is fundamental. At the start of the experiment we worked with several test groups: one was the negative control, obtained using stressed seeds treated with distilled water; then we prepared dynamised water at the 45th without active ingredient, following the same protocol used for arsenic; we then created the 45th decimal of arsenic trioxide with dilution and dynamisation; and finally we prepared arsenic diluted to the 45th without intercalary dynamisation — that is, simply carrying out the dilution steps. We tested approximately 50,000 seeds, applying statistical analysis in a highly rigorous manner. These were the results: arsenic at the 45th DH was consistently stimulating in a significant manner; water at the 45th DH also had a stimulating effect, though less significant than that of arsenic; arsenic simply diluted to the 45th, without dynamisation, was exactly the same as the control water. What does this demonstrate? That Avogadro's law — which was never in any doubt — is a fundamental law and it works: that is, once Avogadro's number is exceeded there are no longer any molecules of the original active ingredient and the preparation is identical to the control water. It was logical to expect that with dilution alone the treatment would have no significant effect. When, however, I introduce the dynamisation process, things change drastically: arsenic at the 45th DH is consistently highly stimulating in a significant manner, and even simply dynamised water has an effect. This means that the dynamisation process is a focal point in the preparation of homoeopathic medicines.

Are the methodological standards you applied to the research reliable and beyond challenge?
We have always published in indexed international peer-reviewed journals. To publish in international journals while working in the field of homoeopathy, one must be beyond reproach. Whereas in more conventional research reviewers may sometimes overlook certain errors of experimental protocol, when it comes to homoeopathy the slightest inattention is enough to have everything blocked. We have worked in an impeccable manner.

What are the next steps and what are your future goals?
We are moving from laboratory research to field research, bearing in mind, however, that the field is an extremely challenging environment. While in the laboratory it is possible to work with rigorous experimental protocols, with many repetitions and with the many variables kept under control, in the field anything can happen. It is therefore a complex transition. We have already carried out two field trials in previous years, one at our university farm and the other in a greenhouse under controlled conditions — so outside the laboratory but still with an experimental-type set-up. We worked on cauliflower against a fungus that attacks it, and we found that the agro-homoeopathic treatment was not only able to contain the infection, acting in an identical way to copper at 3 grams/litre (the treatment generally used in organic farms), but also that the treated cauliflowers had superior nutraceutical quality, being richer in glucosinolates compared to the control — compounds that have an antioxidant and therefore anti-tumour effect. This means that those cauliflowers are much better for those who eat them because they have greater nutraceutical properties. With strawberries, too, the other trial carried out, the agro-homoeopathic treatments significantly increased the antioxidant content. Two years ago we won a project funded by the Emilia-Romagna region for the application of agro-homoeopathic preparations on crops grown by organic farms in the region, which brought us "truly" into the field. Over these two years of trials we have obtained encouraging results, but there is still a great deal of work to be done. We are only at the beginning of a long journey, and the prospects are proving interesting.

What is the greatest difficulty to face in field research?
Choosing the appropriate agro-homoeopathic treatment, because there is no reference materia medica and so we still need to find the means to understand how to intervene and with which homoeopathic treatment. Recently in Bologna we held an agro-homoeopathy course to which we invited Dr Radko Tichavsky, the only person who has been applying agro-homoeopathy in the field for many years. He told us about his experiences and how he tries to identify the preparations using a metabolic approach, which is certainly interesting, but his entire body of experience still needs to be substantiated. We are now working to understand whether the metabolic approach is the one that will actually yield positive results in the future.

Can we say that agro-homoeopathy could be used to control plant diseases but also to enhance the nutrients and beneficial properties of plants?
Certainly — it serves to increase the natural resistance of plants to any type of stress, whether pathogenic (fungi, bacteria) or environmental (water shortage, excessive heat, excessive cold). The increase in natural resistance is generally mediated, from a metabolic standpoint, by substances — secondary metabolites — that most often have a beneficial nutraceutical effect, so the two things go hand in hand.

At a global level, who else is working on agro-homoeopathy?
As mentioned, Dr Radko Tichavsky, who is working in Mexico. There is also legislation relating to agro-homoeopathy in Brazil, where this practice is permitted, but this too is a "local" reality not supported by publications and therefore lacking in scientific authority. The other country where agro-homoeopathy is applied is India, where it is used extensively because its costs are infinitely lower than those of conventional products. There too there are no reference publications: there are indeed some research publications, with very interesting work, but no field research that has passed through international peer review. In Italy, in the absence of legislation on the matter, agro-homoeopathic preparations could not currently be administered to plants, which is paradoxical when we consider that glyphosate is permitted, while agro-homoeopathic preparations are on the one hand accused of being simply "water" and on the other are banned outright as though they were harmful to plants.