Horticulture: People who talk to plants who believe that this process is a reality
While many gardeners believe that talking to plants improves their growth, there is a debate in the scientific world about whether plants listen to us or whether they listen to us.
Lara Belov's house plant makes a clicking sound. They have attached a microphone to the roots of the plant so that they can hear the faint 'click' sound in the soil.
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| Horticulture: People who talk to plants who believe that this process is a reality (credit : pixabay ) |
"It's very strange," says Belov, a professor at Alto University in Finland. This time when someone came to meet him, the sound of 'click' from the plant stopped.
When the guest left, the click started again. Later many more people came, this time the voice stopped. And when they were gone, the voice came again.
"I don't know yet what to think about it," says Belov. It's as if the plant just 'clicks' on Belov in solitude, as if she were talking to him. Efforts to detect clicks from Belov's plants have been going on for more than two years. They still don't know what the plant was saying about these sounds. The equipment used to make this machine was cheap.
A simple microphone that she admits could sense the sounds of microorganisms in the soil or in the surrounding environment, not necessarily the sound of a click. And guessing whether the plant was talking or reacting to people entering the room is just speculation at the moment. But the possibility, a little chance, makes Belov's experience interesting.
"Is this really happening?" She asks. That is the question. " There are many things we don't know about plants and plant life. There is currently a debate among scientists who study plants about the extent to which flowers and shrubs can interact with each other or with other living things. And if they can, can these plants be called intelligent, or does their ability make them intelligent?
There are also plants that respond to chemical signals or sounds, but the idea that they can or do communicate with each other is controversial. At present, scientific research is constantly making new discoveries about the complexities of plants and their amazing abilities.
It is possible that plants may be a little more complex than we think they are. But the idea that they 'talk' to humans is still controversial. However, this controversy does not stop some people from trying to include plants in their conversations.
These are called whispers with plants. Belov first heard the sound of the roots of his plants after reading about the experiments of Monica Gigliano and other researchers. Over the past decade, Gigliano has published a series of research papers at the University of Western Australia stating that plants have the ability to communicate, learn and remember.
He has long argued that scientists should pay more attention to the fact that plants can transmit and retrieve information acoustically.
Gigliano believes that plants can communicate. She says "the evidence is clear." Plants that heard the caterpillar's snort produced more chemicals than real and hungry caterpillars would attack, which would keep them safe from their attackers.
A well-known paper published in 2012 stated that Gigliano and his co-authors discovered the clicking of noise from plant roots. The researchers used a laser vibrometer to detect signals from the roots of these sounds.
Gigliano says the laser was trained on the roots of plants when they were submerged in laboratory conditions to make sure that the perceived sounds were actually coming from the roots. To say that any of these clicks is a communication function.
More evidence is needed. Gigliano says he has observed the roots of plants respond to sounds at similar frequencies by changing the direction of their growth. Uncertainty remains as to what this means. And Gigliano also expressed surprise at his claims that he had heard plants use words in an inexperienced environment.
She says the experiment is "strictly outside the realm of science" and that the sounds she has heard from laboratory instruments cannot be measured by anyone else. But she is quite sure that she has noticed the plants talking on many occasions.
Sound can also activate mutually beneficial relationships between plants and other living things. In Borneo, the rear inner wall of horses belonging to the carnivorous plant Nepenthes hemsaliana is prepared for the ultrasound response of bats.
These attract bats to the nests of plants, in which they stay, and these bats later improve the fertility of the plant with drops dripping from their bodies.
A 2016 research paper investigating sound interactions between plants and bats found that species closely related to plants, which do not rely on bats for fertilizer, have similar interactions. Does not have a surface that attracts flying mammals.
All of this helps to reinforce the claim that sound is important to plants. But with this mechanism, plants can perceive or perceive sound, a mystery right now. And although it is safe to say that they have the ability to respond to genetically programmed or automated sound stimuli.
But it is another matter whether the plants can hear the sound and consider how to react to it. Most people will argue that this type of intelligence largely protects animal species. David Robinson of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, was among those who questioned the plant's ability to communicate.
Although it is interesting to note that plants' responses to sound stimuli are predetermined and limited, they say that "they have nothing to do with any thought process." Plants do not have neurons, meaning cells that transmit information through electrical signals to the animal's brain.
Robinson says plants generally lack the machinery to think. However, it can be said that chemical elements move inside plants through signaling. The idea that plants can learn is controversial.
One researcher tried to replicate the findings of a study on plant learning by Gigliano and his colleagues. But he failed to achieve the same result a second time. In a published response, Gigliano and his team stated that the retry test method was very different from their own results so they could not reliably estimate the results of their first experiment.
Although plants respond to different types of sound stimuli and sometimes communicate with different forms of life through chemicals, many experts would say that it cannot be said to interact with them in any way. Robinson says he does not rule out the possibility that plants may still surprise us - but he insists we should not try to compare their communication abilities with ours.
Or we may try to talk to them. It also does not reduce the differences between researchers, with one faction arguing that plants have the ability to acquire knowledge and the other faction arguing that plants do not.
"I mean in the war of words," he says. This does not mean that there is a division between these factions. Researchers differ in their views on the potential of plants, and many scientists other than Robinson suspect that plants are intelligent. One might think that this is a human-like form of communication.
But Tony Trevos, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, has a different view. Speaking in a different way, he says that plants can be considered intelligent because they clearly respond to sound stimuli in ways that improve their survival difficulties. He likens it to a zebra that runs away in fear of a lion.
"We have a bit of a hard time thinking of it as an intelligent reaction," he says, "while the plant that destroys part of one of its leaves can stop the caterpillar from laying eggs there." Trivia also points to the fact that trees rely on microbial networks in the soil to find nutrients. It is a form of communication between these species.
"Every life is intelligent because if it weren't for that, it wouldn't be in this case," says Tony Trevavaz. This is definitely something to think about. According to the definition of this concept, is survival a proof of intelligence? Either way, the question is, how can one talk to plants or decode vegetables.