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Overheard a gardener at the Chicago Botanic Garden say something about plant communication
She was telling a group that some plants, like tomatoes, can send out chemical signals through the air when they get hurt by bugs. The signal warns other plants nearby to get their defenses ready. I had no idea plants could talk to each other like that. Has anyone else read about this kind of thing happening in their own garden?
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grace_fox31mo ago
and here i thought i was just bad at keeping plants alive but turns out they're gossiping about me behind my back. maybe that's why my basil keeps looking at me funny every time i forget to water it. the whole parasitic wasp thing is wild though. like my tomatoes are out there screaming for hitmen while i'm just trying to make pesto. honestly if my plants are that dramatic they probably deserve to get eaten.
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tessacarter2mo ago
Yeah, that's a cool thing, but the signal isn't really a "warning" for other plants. It's more like a general distress call that attracts the bugs' predators. So the tomato is basically screaming for help from things like parasitic wasps, and the other plants just happen to overhear it and ramp up their own defenses as a side effect.
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