Affection for plants

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33061, 31 October 1972, Page 6

Affection for plants

(By

BETH SAUNDERS)

Has your garden been looking off-colour lately? If it has, do not be too quick to blame the soil or the weather. It might be you who is responsible —for not showing your flowers, fruit and vegetables enough affection.

There is a rapidly growing feeling among some botanists and green-fingered experts that gardens could be made lovelier if only we talked to the trees, plants, and blooms and told them how wonderful they all are. Now then, no laughing. The latest experiments at the University of Queensland have shown that plants actually can establish emotional contact with people. They can also register emotions, it is asserted. Researchers have found that they emit radio waves, enough, to make a noise and be heard. CONSTANT COMMUNION This was illustrated when Professor Jack Todd at Queensland University hooked half-a-dozen plants up to some scientific apparatus that could monitor the slightest emotional reaction. A volunteer from a group of six then shredded , a plant in front of the others, after which they all left the room.

When the volunteers returned one by one, the plants showed an emotional reaction to the person who, minutes before, had “killed” their friend. The reactions recorded were similar to those a human often reveals under stress.

One man who earnestly believes we should be in constant communion with our plants is the British gardening expert, Fred Streeter. He says that talking to your flowers does them no end of good. Apparently, just like humans, they can get sick, sad, and lonely. The art of conversation between man and plant life is not new. Years ago, before the advent of television, according to the scientists, people had time to talk to their gardens — and the plants responded with a joyful display of colour, scent, and taste the year round.

That is the reason, they say, why there were so many really large aspidistras about. People had time to talk and really put meaning into what they said to the plants. You can put as much muck, fertiliser, or what have you under a plant or vegetable, but unless you tend it with a message of cheerful good will and praise, all your labours will be in vain.

The way plants have reacted to noise in laboratory tests, one would think they were human. Some love noise, and scientists are now compiling a list of suitable plants and shrubs to thrive and help to deaden sound in noisy factories and workshops. But others have only to hear sounds of everyday life and they just give up. German researchers, for example, could not account for the way certain decorative plants in an airport reception hall just wilted and died. Eventually, they found it was because of noise, and replaced the plants with ones that could stand it. WALTZ TIME

Flowers and vegetables also respond to music in almost the same way as we do. So if your tomatoes are not coming on, then do what a policeman does in the west of England—-he plays them a tune on his mouth organ. Waltzes seem to produce the highest yield. Lullabies seem to figure high in a tomatoe’s top 10, too. Market gardeners are also finding they can raise choice crops by showing a little kindness to their plants. Some are really pampering their tomatoes, cucumbers, and grapes—-gently coaxing them in electrically warmed soil and piping in a constant background of soothing music.

One recent experiment at the Soviet Union’s Agricultural Research Laboratory has really had the scientists gasping. They planted wheat in a glass container in artificial desert conditions. There was no water and nourish-

ment, yet the plants flourished as well as other plants growing outside the desert area.

The scientists do not know how the plants got the water, but they are more convinced than ever that there is a sort of botanical freemasonry among plants—in other words, that they are capable of helping one another in some mysterious way.