I Can Hear The Grass Grow

I was intrigued by Jrld's comment last week that "maybe we might have some WFMUcentric posts about music/sound/plant growth next?"

He even mentioned "The Secret Life of Plants", Peter Tompkins' and Christopher Bird's bestseller from a decade of equally weird and wonderful bestsellers like Erick von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods". Was God an alien? Can plants think and feel? Would that macrame plant holder look better next to the black light poster or over by the pet rock?

An entire generation waited with bated, bancha tea scented breath.

Last week I was accused, variously, of being quite literally a lunatic for entertaining the notion that there might be something interesting in planting according to the moon's cycles and related zodiac houses. Some suggested I might have a point. Others were just plain baffled.

I confess to feeling that way about "The Secret Life of Plants".

"Essentially," says the Wiki entry, "the subject of the book is the idea that plants may be sentient, despite their lack of a nervous system and a brain."

It's that last bit that makes me stop and think, "Excuse me? Say what now?" Some years ago, I qualified as a massage therapist, and part of that training was a pretty thorough study of the central nervous system, the brain and the limbic system. To put it very simply the nerves record temperature, pressure and pain and these responses are conveyed via the central nervous system to the brain where they are interpreted and a reaction occurs: brrrrr, ahhhhh, yummy, ouch and so on.

The limbic system, located at the top of the nasal passage and just in front of the brain translates chemicals caught up in the mucus membranes of the nose and sends them to the part of the brain associated with memory to be interpreted as good, bad, dangerous, or, if you're Marcel Proust, your entire childhood in the form of a novel.

Much has been written about love being a chemical reaction based on pheromones, and touch therapy has its adherents.

Without a central nervous system or a brain to interpret that data, you're pretty much out on a limb, or indeed a stem, when it comes to feeling. You're pretty much in the arena of vibrations and apt to start singing Beach Boys' songs slightly off-key.

Plants do of course respond to the vibrations of the air around them - the wind rustling their leaves and stems stimulates root growth, and many gardeners regularly tussle the leaves of seedlings in passing to get them started in this habit. They also respond to light in the form of photosynthesis. Whether they have any kind of emotional response to that is another matter entirely.

Jrld supplied a link to a New Scientist article whereby a South Korean biochemist Mi-Jeong Jeong of the National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology in his native country claims to have identified two genes present in plants which respond to sound waves.

Others have noted similar experiments with plants and sound waves: Dorothy Retallack in "The Sound of Music and Plants", the aforementioned Tompkins and Bird, and so on.

The hypothesis is that sound waves produce a physical energy which then travels through a medium of water, air, and solids, and then the speed, volume and penetration of that energy determines the effect it has on the plant. Quite simply it's like a repeated and greater tussling of leaves and stems.

Which is why, if you go to see The Who at the Brighton Centre in 2006, and you stand in front of the bass speaker when Zak Starkey does the drum-roll at the beginning of "Who Are You", you are inclined to fall over and have to fight the urge to throw up.

Far too many bad vibes, man.

But that still begs the question as to whether

• a) your plants feel anything in the emotional sense, or
  
• b) are experiencing anything over and above what the wind does when it rustles them naturally.

It's rather like the craze of talking to your plants - they respond to you, claimed the advocates. Of course they did, said the cynics, you're breathing carbon dioxide all over them.

I suspect that the experiments with sound waves, or rather more specifically playing music to plants, has more to do with the emotional response felt by the gardener. When you listen to your favourite music as you potter away planting, weeding and generally being rather whole earth and jolly, you feel good and you relax. You also focus on the moment. A relaxed, happy gardener, fully in the moment is going to be a better gardener and do all the things that they're supposed to do in order for the plant to grow properly, rather than just bung some seeds in a pot and bugger off.

It's a no-brainer really - which is coincidentally exactly what plants are.

Comments

[Kevin]

Plants are capable of sensing light, sound, air, moisture, nutrients, gravity, and respond to such. Sensing is feeling. They can feel what's good for them, so it follows they can feel bad.

[K.]

Sigh....

http://www.plantneurobiology.org/

Plant neurobiology: an integrated view of plant signaling.Brenner ED, Stahlberg R, Mancuso S, Vivanco J, Baluska F, Van Volkenburgh E.
Genomics, New York Botanical Garden, NY 10458, USA. ebrenner@nybg.org

Plant neurobiology is a newly focused field of plant biology research that aims to understand how plants process the information they obtain from their environment to develop, prosper and reproduce optimally. The behavior plants exhibit is coordinated across the whole organism by some form of integrated signaling, communication and response system. This system includes long-distance electrical signals, vesicle-mediated transport of auxin in specialized vascular tissues, and production of chemicals known to be neuronal in animals. Here we review how plant neurobiology is being directed toward discovering the mechanisms of signaling in whole plants, as well as among plants and their neighbors.

[Kevin]

Fruits and flowers are designed to look, smell, and taste good to attract animals to further the plant's reproduction. In many cases, they are designed to attract specific animals. Which indicates that not only are they aware of the animals around them, but they know what looks, smells and tastes good to them.

They also develop defenses against harmful animals (smells, tastes, appearances, poison sap, thorns, bark and shells). So even without a brain, plants are smarter than most drivers on the Garden State Parkway.

[Kevin]

Many plants are sensitive to touch, which is closely related to hearing. Motion plants like the Mimosa and Telegraph plant respond to both touch and vibrations in the air.

touched mimosa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPAnkXVulhU

telegraph plant sound response
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItxRJH_hTeY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SQJ4xPpXCc

[Jrld]

There are some really intriguing links above- nice one gang.

*sigh* My plants are definitely sensitive to the cycles of Moondog.

[GeorgyGirl]

See, this is where this blog comes into its own and what makes me look forward to writing something new every Saturday. I look into something and think "Ok... interesting...", pitch it out there and then you all come back with lots of additional information and experiences that blow me away. And I learn more.

I started off wondering about plants feeling stuff and wrote the article which sort of moved me off the fence a little bit, and now with the extra information I'm thinking that maybe there is something more to this.

Which means I've been interacting with my plants more. :)

[Jrld]

I was hoping someone would dig up that classic photo, "Plant Exposed to Classical Music" vs "Plant Exposed to Rock and/or Roll".

We had this plant in me childhoodlum that grew down the park that would curl up if you touched it or yelled hard enough. Totally whimsical piece of plant that.

[K.]

Me too. I hadn't really thought about it, but the explaination proffered by GG seems pretty spot on. That is to say, when plants are exposed to a lot of wind and are shaken, it tends to stunt their growth. Now your average R&R bass player aims to make trouser legs flap, and usually achieves that goal, so you can see why the milder music is tolerated by the plants and the heavy bass music isn't.

Happens I was at a big nursery sale yesterday, some 50 - 75 local nuseries attending. Lot's of fun, and wouldn't you know one dealer was specializing in carnivorous plants! All the usual suspects, including the infamous Venus Fly Trap. As it turns out, the trigger hairs use calcium ions to carry the action potential generated by tickling them to the "muscle" portions of the plant. Mammals usually use sodium and potassium, although muscles such as the heart use calcium. But you have a rudimentary but complete nervous system here, which can even differentiate between prey and a water drop.

[Kevin]

It makes sense. Environmental sounds and touches would indicate potentially threatening motion (rain, wind, birds, insects). Plants prefer to be planted, rooted, quiet and still.

[GeorgyGirl]

K - so, carnivorous plants do the whole gulp thing? I had no idea. That's sort of fascinating and creepy in equal measures.

[Jrld]

Like many on the modern western diet, the plant has a heart attack and wakes up with a tray full of food.

As a vegetarian I am totally fascinated with carnivorous plants.

[Jrld]

P.S- I should have the results of one of the worst experiments designed in a week: Testing the speed of seed germination hooked up to a solar tone-oscillator, which has decided to sing up at mabe C3 on the piano.

[Tiger Turf]

The study from Mi-Jeong Jeong is interesting but just because they can respond to sound doesn't mean that they are sentient. It is more likely to be a reflex reaction.