How a 50,000-Degree Bolt of Lightning Helps Your Garden Grow

While there is no doubt that lightning is a force not to mess with, these electric bolts are actually good news for your backyard garden. Here is the science behind how lightning can help provide beneficial fertilization to gardens and vegetation.

How Lightning Storms Can Nourish Your Garden

There is a scientific reason behind why your garden may look better after a thunderstorm. The lightning from the storm has actually been shown to deliver benefits to gardens without even making a direct strike.

To understand why this happens, consider that nitrogen makes up 78% of the atmosphere. Nitrogen also happens to be one of the primary ingredients in fertilizer. Atmospheric nitrogen exists in a gaseous state and is made up of two bonded nitrogen molecules. Nitrogen in this form is of no use to plants; however, the accompanying lightning can make a difference.

Lightning is a powerful force of nature that has been shown to be able to heat the air around it to a temperature of about 50,000 degrees. This amount of energy is potent enough to break the triple bond of nitrogen molecules, making it one of the strongest bonds ever identified.

The free nitrogen atoms are able to combine with oxygen and mix in with moisture falling from the sky to form nitrates. The rain hitting the ground then works to support lawn and garden growth. Known in scientific terms as nitrogen fixation, this process creates the chemically identical ingredient that is used in fertilizer.

Nitrogen Fixation is More Immediate When Accompanied by Lightning

It is estimated that the planet records 44 to 100 lightning strikes per second. This volume equates to almost 8 million strikes per day. It is easy to see how this type of lightning frequency can make a significant difference in the formation of natural fertilizer.

In addition to this form of fertilizer being free and not requiring work, lightning nitrate works immediately to deliver nourishment to vegetation. This differs from organic fertilizers, which need the soil microbes to activate the process.

All organic fertilizers and manures inherently have a delay before their work is activated. Soil that is too cold or dry will not provide nourishment, as it takes time for the microbes to break it down into a usable form for roots.

Conversely, the nitrates unleashed by rainwater are ready to use immediately. This means the roots will begin to absorb the nutrients right when they hit the soil.

This scientific process explains why a garden may appear to glow more in the hours immediately after a thunderstorm. Unlike regular rain events, the accompanying lightning in thunderstorms heats up the atmosphere and delivers immediate usable nitrogen at the same time as the irrigation.

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