Plants Communicate with Other plants, Help Them Grow

A new study has found that plants communicate through nanomechanical vibrations and help neighboring plants grow well, even when other forms of communication between them such as contact, chemical and light-mediated signals are blocked. In this study, researchers found that chilli plants grow better when planted alongside basil plants.

For the study, researchers from University of Western Australia tried to grow chilli plants by either planting only chilli plants (Capsicum annuum), coupling the chilli plants with other chilli plants, or coupling them with basil plants (Ocimum basilicum).

Previous research from University of Western Australia has shown that plants can respond to sounds and make clicking sounds to talk to other plants.

In this study, researchers found that seed germination was better when chilli seeds were grown along with basil seeds, while seed germination of only chilli plants was very low.

After seed germination, the chilli plants were covered in plastic bags so that they couldn't communicate with their neighboring plants. However, these chilli plants grew with the same pace as other chilli plants that weren't separated by the plastic bags.

Just like good neighbors, there are also certain bad neighbors that don't support chilli plant seed germination such as fennel seeds.

"Our results show that plants are able to positively influence growth of seeds by some as yet unknown mechanism. Bad neighbors, such as fennel, prevent chilli seed germination in the same way. We believe that the answer may involve acoustic signals generated using nanomechanical oscillations from inside the cell which allow rapid communication between nearby plants," said Monica Gagliano from the University of Western Australia, according to a news release.

The study "Love thy neighbour: facilitation through an alternative signalling modality in plants by Monica Gagliano and Michael Renton" is published in the journal BMC Ecology.