Plants and farmers may soon be able to “talk” to each other and ensure the most efficient use of water for crops.
Research out the United States has taken a major step forward in advancing two-way communication with plants.
Study author Vesna Bacheva, a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS) said it could be possible for plants in a field to warn a grower it needed water and conversely a farmer could signal to plants that dry weather lay ahead, thereby prompting the plants to conserve water.
Ms Bacheva said the researchers had solved a century-old conundrum of how plants internally signal stress.
She said by understanding how plant communication systems worked, the team could begin to exploit those signals to create plants that could communicate with people and each other and be programmed to respond to specific stressors.
“The solution lies in the negative pressure that exists within a plant’s vasculature, which is required for keeping water inside its stems, roots and leaves when it’s dry.”
Ms Bacheva said stressors altered the pressure balance inside the plant, which then launched motion in the plant’s fluid that could carry mechanical and chemical signals throughout the plant, to counter a stressor and restore balance.
“We are trying to build a foundational knowledge of understanding how communication in plants happens.
“Our framework provides a mechanistic understanding of what drives signals from one place to another and explains how mechanical and chemical signals could propagate.”
Read the full study: A unified framework for hydromechanical signaling can explain transmission of local and long-distance signals in plants.
