TOMATO plants “scream” when one of their stem is cut off, a study claims.
They also makes sounds “like bubble-wrap being popped” that can be detected from more than three feet away when they are thirsty.
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The sounds are hard for humans to detect — but animals, insects and other organisms may be able to hear them.
It means plants can communicate with their surroundings far more than we realise. It also means that by “listening” in, famers will be able to tell when their crop is stressed.
Israeli researchers discovered that tomato and tobacco plants that are under pressure from dehydration or having their stems severed give out sounds that are comparable in volume to human conversation.
They say the sounds resemble pops or clicks, and a single stressed plant emits around 30 to 50 clicks per hour at seemingly random intervals, but unstressed plants emit far fewer sounds.
Study author Professor Lilach Hadany, an evolutionary biologist and theoretician at Tel Aviv University, said: “When tomatoes are not stressed at all, they are very quiet.”
She added: “Even in a quiet field, there are sounds that we don’t hear, and those sounds carry information.
“There are animals that can hear these sounds, so there is the possibility that a lot of acoustic interaction is occurring.”
Exactly what makes the noises is unclear but researchers believe it may be a result of the formation and bursting of air bubbles in the plant’s vascular system.
