LISTEN | It's controversial, but proponents say the proof is in the plants:

It sounds like weird science and some have dismissed it as "snake oil."

But an emerging crop fertilizer technology is gaining interest amid an acute shortage caused by wars in the Middle East. Though research is in early stages and has not yet been peer-reviewed, the method is also being explored as one possible way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from traditional chemical fertilizers.

The cold plasma method essentially replicates lightning, similar to the novelty lightning globes popular in the '90s.

The fertilizer is made on site at individual farms, a potential advantage as geopolitical conflicts disrupt supply.

About one-third of the world's fertilizer is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, where traffic has been severely restricted since the beginning of March. Compounding the problem, Iran is a major producer of fertilizer and nitrogen, and its industry has been damaged by airstrikes.

Jeff Harrison, chair of Grain Farmers of Ontario, said that has pushed fertilizer prices sharply higher.

"Expenses are exceeding revenues this year, and that's not a pretty picture for farmers," said Harrison, who grows corn and soybeans in Quinte, about 100 kilometres from Kingston, Ont. 

WATCH | Strait of Hormuz big trouble for farmers:

What has plasma got to do with it?

To understand how cold plasma fertilizer works, it helps to get a handle on the vocabulary. Plasma is a word used to describe a component in your blood, but it has a different meaning in physics.

"If you put energy into liquids, you can make them gaseous," said Stephan Reuter, a professor of plasma physics from Polytechnique Montréal who is researching plasma fertilizer. "And if you put more energy into these gases, you can transfer these gases into a plasma."

Lightning is plasma. The northern lights are plasma. The little shock you get when you walk across a carpet and then touch a light switch is plasma, he said.

Lightning, seen here during a storm near Yamaska, Que., converts nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form plants can absorb. (Daniel Thomas/CBC)

Lightning is a natural fertilizer because its energy converts nitrogen in the air into a form plants can absorb, Reuter told What on Earth. That combines with rainwater to make nitric acid, and falls onto soil as liquid fertilizer.

What does this look like?

A couple of different North American manufacturers are making devices that mimic this process. 

Machines made by U.S. company Green Lightning are the most widely distributed in Canada. They are sold here by Nytro Ag Corp., run by Chris Nykolaishen, a farmer who grows wheat and canola near Kamsack, Sask.

Since starting in 2024, he said he has sold about 200 Green Lightning machines to 82 farms. Some larger farms have bought two or more machines, but that is a small group among the 189,874 farms counted in Canada's last census. 

Green Lightning cold plasma machines, left, are used to generate liquid crop fertilizer using electricity, air and water on a farm near Brandon, Man. The green tanks are for storing the fertilizer. (Submitted by Chris Nykolaishen)

The most common Green Lightning system, the Thunder 365, is not quite two metres high and about 1.2 metres wide and deep. Nykolaishen said it costs $66,500.

A plasma reactor inside each machine creates the kind of colourful lightning seen in novelty globes. From there, it breaks apart nitrogen molecules to make nitrous oxide, Nykolaishen said.

That is sent into a special chamber, where it is infused into water to make nitric acid, becoming liquid fertilizer.

Nykolaishen recommends farmers start with a small trial in their first season and get to know the specifications, including the need for a reverse-osmosis system to filter the water.

Hard-won cynicism

That cautious approach is more appealing for farmers, he said, because many "look at this as if it's snake oil." The cynicism is hard won, he said.

"There's been a lot of things that have come through agriculture that just haven't worked out."

For those who do make the leap, Nykolaishen said the system can produce 36,500 gallons (about 14,000 litres) of fertilizer a year if run continuously. That is enough to fertilize 1,000 acres (400 hectares) of wheat and canola with no other fertilizer, or a larger farm when combined with other products.

Each season, the farmers he works with are refining the system, but they need more data.

"The hard thing about agriculture is you really only get one shot at R&D every year, so you gotta make sure you make it count," he said. 

In these images supplied by Stephan Reuter, left, a professor of engineering physics at Polytechnique Montréal, the middle photo shows plasma filaments moving between two metal electrodes. The filaments generate reactive molecules from air, which are brought into water to make liquid fertilizer for hydroponic plants. At right, a technology demonstration used in high school and CEGEP settings. (Submitted by Stephan Reuter)

Reuter's team at Polytechnique Montréal has funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to test cold plasma fertilizer. He said it is the only team in the country doing so.

The group is testing the fertilizer in a greenhouse setting on hydroponic lettuce. The findings are relevant, Reuter said, but not an apples-to-apples comparison for soil in a field of wheat or corn.

A credible "tutorial review" explaining the cold plasma method and its potential advantages was published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal RSC Sustainability in 2025, but the research is so new there are not yet peer-reviewed studies.

There are also questions about how well the system will work at scale and integrate with existing farm equipment, since many farms use rigs designed to spread dry, granular fertilizer, not liquid.

But that wasn't a problem on the Yorkton, Sask., farm near the Manitoba border where Jordan Keep and his business partner tried the system for the first time last year.

"We were already running liquid fertilizer, so we didn't have to change much in terms of our seeding equipment," he said.

While chemical fertilizers used in agriculture are a big source of greenhouse gases, they're also a significant component to stable food supply. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

Potential climate benefits

The friends practice regenerative farming, focusing on keeping soil healthy over the long term rather than maximizing crop yield each year.

"We want to limit our carbon footprint," Keep said.

He said they ran a trial on one field of wheat, using traditional chemical fertilizer on one side and Green Lightning fertilizer on the other.

"Our Green Lightning side really took off," he said. "They were seeded the same day, side by side … and as soon as it popped out of the ground, the Green Lightning side had fuller rows. It looked like it was planted almost a week ahead."

• Not just oil: Fertilizer prices spike amid Iran war, worrying Canadian farmers

Reuter said one of his group's research goals is to find ways Canada can reduce its reliance on traditional fertilizer, "which is very, very harmful to the environment because it uses fossil fuel to generate the fertilizer molecules."

The cold plasma method uses only a small amount of electricity to create those molecules, he said.

Nykolaishen said the company's environmental pitch is simple: "Your inputs into making the product are air, water and electricity — so not using natural gas to make the nitrogen. You're not shipping it across the world. You're not hauling it from a retailer onto your farm."

In an email to CBC, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (AAFC) said it recognizes innovation will play a role in the future of fertilizer use in Canada, and that plasma-based fertilizers have the potential to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impacts.

"At the same time, conventional fertilizers and manure continue to play a critical and indispensable role in supporting crop production, food security, and farm productivity in Canada," the email said.

In response to a question about how AAFC will help farmers cope with the current fertilizer shortage, the statement said, in part, that it's working with partners to "identify supply pressures ahead of the 2027 growing season."