For the first time results about the influence of an applied electric field ( E⩽15kV cm -1) on the incommensurate phase in quartz are presented. It is shown, that the incommensurate phase appears at different regions in the applied field-temperature space depending on the history of the sample. Preliminary kinetic experiments revealed that the field induced transition between incommensurate and high-temperature phase as well as the lock-in transition to the low temperature phase is relatively slow with relaxation times on a scale of seconds.