Plants are so freaking cool.

[rustydog]

I love them. And I'm not surprised by this:

Back in 2007, Canadian researchers discovered that a common seashore plant, called a sea rocket, can recognize its siblings - plants grown from seeds from the same plant, or mother. They saw that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they "play nice" and don't send out more roots to

Comments

[rustydog]

Day of the Triffids did cross my mind...

[mad_jaks]

I love that :D

[rustydog]

It made me squee a little. :)

[phoenix64]

That is so very, very cool. And a little creepy.

[rustydog]

Yes and yes! ::shivers with delight and creepiness::

[phoenix64]

Actually though, it brings up a question. We're told that nature operates best with diversity and variety. Wouldn't non-competition between genetic matches and competition with genetic variants go against that?

FYI, your link is bad. I wanted to read the article to see if this had been brought up (Google to the rescue).

[rustydog]

Oh, how embarrassing. I copied the article title instead of the url into the link code. I apologize.

So you got your answer? It's better in this article The study leaves a lot of unanswered questions that Bais hopes to explore further. How might sibling plants grown in large “monocultures,” such as corn or other major crop plants, be affected? Are they more susceptible to pathogens? And how do they survive without competing?

“It's possible that when kin are grown together, they may balance their nutrient uptake and not be greedy,” Bais speculates.

That speculation isn't much of an answer, but it's nice to know they're going to explore further!