31.08.07
Plants: Do you hear what I hear?
- Agriculture, Research -
By Agence France-Presse
PARIS–An “ear of corn” may one day take on a whole new meaning after South Korean researchers determined that plants are sensitive to sound, New Scientist reports.
They hope that farmers may eventually encourage plants to flower or ripen by blasting sound into the fields, the British weekly says in next Saturday’s issue.
Mi-Jeong Jeong of the National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology in Suwon and colleagues explored a long-standing hypothesis that, as plants react to light and also to touch, they may also respond to sound.
