At a Glance
- Scientists have discovered that changes in pressure within a plant’s vascular system trigger internal signals, helping plants respond to stress like wounds, drought, or pest attacks.
- These pressure changes move water and chemicals through the plant, activating defensive responses such as releasing toxic acids or defensive genes via mechanisms like ion channels.
- Researchers found that pressure signaling helps plants recognize and react to external stressors, suggesting future opportunities to engineer plants that communicate more effectively with farmers.
- The study opens the possibility of developing “reporter plants” that visually signal their needs, such as requiring water, which could significantly enhance crop management and water conservation.
- This breakthrough in plant communication could revolutionize agriculture by enabling two-way communication between farmers and crops, making farming more adaptive and sustainable in the face of environmental challenges.
Scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding how plants communicate internally under stress. This research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explains how changes in pressure within a plant’s vascular system—its network of water-conducting tubes—trigger signals that move through the plant. These signals help plants respond to stressors like wounds, changes in water availability, or damage from pests. The Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS) team used a new framework to explore how mechanical and chemical signals can be transmitted throughout the plant when its internal pressure changes.
Plants are constantly moving water through their system to keep themselves hydrated, and when they experience stress, like a caterpillar nibbling on a leaf, the pressure in their vascular system shifts. These pressure changes can cause water to move, carrying along chemicals that trigger responses in other parts of the plant. This could help the plant defend itself by producing a toxic acid or other chemicals that repel the pests. The researchers suggest that these responses happen through mechanisms such as ion channels, which release calcium and other molecules that activate defensive genes in the plant.
The team also looked into how these changes in pressure are linked to the plant’s ability to recognize and react to external factors like drought. By understanding how plants use internal pressure as a signaling tool, the researchers hope to design plants that can communicate more effectively with farmers. For example, the goal is to create plants that can signal when they need water or when to conserve it, providing an innovative way for farmers to improve crop management and water efficiency.
This study is important because it sheds light on how plants react to their environment and lays the groundwork for future technologies. The research team aims to develop “reporter plants” that could change color or light up when they need water, offering farmers a visual tool for plant health. The long-term vision is to create a two-way communication system where farmers can inform plants about upcoming challenges, like drought, and the plants can respond by using water more efficiently. This innovative work could revolutionize how we think about farming in the future.
References
- Ramanujan, K. & Cornell University. (2025, April 23). Century-old mystery of plant communication solved: Plants signal stress through negative pressure mechanisms. Phys.Org; Cornell University. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-century-mystery-communication-stress-negative.html
- Bacheva, V., Rockwell, F. E., Salmon, J.-B., Woodson, J. D., Frank, M. H., & Stroock, A. D. (2025). A unified framework for hydromechanical signaling can explain transmission of local and long-distance signals in plants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(17), e2422692122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2422692122
