Screaming tomatoes

December 21, 2019 10:53 PM

According to research by Itzhak Khait and colleagues at Tel Aviv University, tomato and tobacco plants produce high-pitched sounds when they're injured or lack water. These sounds are too high for humans to hear, but some animals can. Summary by Nicoletta Lanese at Live Science.

Another summary from Smithsonian Magazine.

Preprint of the original paper on BioRχive.

A fun discussion about this paper by Anton Petrov, a YouTuber who usually posts videos about astronomy.

The Live Science article includes some caveats about the research: The paper hasn't been peer reviewed yet. It's still possible that researchers picked up sounds from other sources, though they took steps to avoid that. The idea that plants use this as a form of communication or that animals who can hear these sounds respond to them in some way is speculative at this point.

I love Anton Petrov's suggestion that bats prefer sleeping in caves to get away from noisy trees. But, of course, it's speculative, and we don't know if trees produce similar sounds.

posted by nangar (34 comments total)

Obligatory.
posted by thelonius at 11:05 PM on December 21, 2019 [15 favorites]

tomato and tobacco plants produce high-pitched sounds when they're injured or lack water

me too bitch you're not special
posted by poffin boffin at 3:29 AM on December 22, 2019 [73 favorites]

I can't help thinking of the Roomba post earlier this week.
posted by MtDewd at 4:01 AM on December 22, 2019 [3 favorites]

*hands over ears* la la la; I can't hear you!

There's so much communication that goes on undetected if we don't even know how to decode it or to even notice it. Everything from social clues to tree root signals to fungus networks..... as is oft stated: we don't know what we don't know.
posted by mightshould at 5:03 AM on December 22, 2019 [9 favorites]

I am unsure if is a blessing or a curse, that they scream, without having evolved ears to hear it. Corn, on the other hand, can do nothing but listen.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:05 AM on December 22, 2019 [31 favorites]

Roald Dahl had it right!
posted by exogenous at 5:09 AM on December 22, 2019 [11 favorites]

This makes vegetarianism a little less comforting.
posted by amtho at 5:36 AM on December 22, 2019 [4 favorites]

We need some philosophers to weigh in on what kind of memories they have.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:36 AM on December 22, 2019 [4 favorites]

I think I can guess what they were trying to do with the tomato and tobacco plants when they made this discovery
posted by ejs at 5:41 AM on December 22, 2019 [11 favorites]

amtho: This makes vegetarianism a little less comforting.

Or meat eating a little more relaxing.
posted by clawsoon at 6:19 AM on December 22, 2019 [7 favorites]

Also obligatory.
posted by Scattercat at 6:53 AM on December 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

You realize that this could be revolutionary for agriculture? We just listen to the plants and let them tell us what they need.
posted by heatherlogan at 8:17 AM on December 22, 2019 [3 favorites]

What if they lie?

I bet they lie.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:23 AM on December 22, 2019 [14 favorites]

Obligatory #3, courtesy of Tool:

And the angel of the lord came unto me
Snatching me up from my place of slumber
And took me on high and higher still
Until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself
And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own Midwest
And as we descended cries of impending doom rose from the soil
One thousand nay a million voices full of fear
And terror possessed me then
And I begged Angel of the Lord what are these tortured screams?
And the angel said unto me
These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots!
You see, Reverend Maynard
Tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat
Like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared
"Hear me now, I have seen the light!
They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul!
Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!
Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus"
posted by eirias at 8:33 AM on December 22, 2019 [9 favorites]

You realize that this could be revolutionary for agriculture? We just listen to the plants and let them tell us what they need.

Yeah, 'cause humanity does so well with listening to what others need.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:44 AM on December 22, 2019 [12 favorites]

Puts me in mind of a short story from 1971 Vanity Fair called Notes: What I Think Pudding Says by John Deck. Well worth a read.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:06 AM on December 22, 2019

Hannibal Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the tomatoes.
Clarice Starling: Yes.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 9:40 AM on December 22, 2019 [7 favorites]

Plant pathologist here. I am begging people to stop sending me this article.

Did you know that a drone rigged with imaging equipment can tell from the color of a tree whether it is drought-stricken, diseased, vitamin-deficient, pesticide-exposed or otherwise stressed? Did you know that you can take an air sample and determine from the volatiles whether a plant is stressed? Did you know that the curling that occurs as leaves contract due to water loss might possibly make a noise?

Get off my lawn! You are stressing it!
posted by acrasis at 10:03 AM on December 22, 2019 [55 favorites]

My cat screams when he thinks he's hungry. Doesn't mean he's getting fed until it's dinnertime.
posted by briank at 10:06 AM on December 22, 2019 [6 favorites]

I stopped reading at “still in peer review”.
posted by simra at 10:15 AM on December 22, 2019 [3 favorites]

Acrasis, I would LOVE a front page post from you on those topics!
posted by agregoli at 10:49 AM on December 22, 2019 [5 favorites]

Acrasis! We won't get off your lawn until you make FPPs about plant pathology! Nice lawn you have there, be a shame if it were stressed by hundreds of internet strangers standing on it, if you know what I mean.
posted by medusa at 12:56 PM on December 22, 2019 [18 favorites]

You know who I’m sure can hear the tomato plants? The damn hornworms, that’s who.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:01 PM on December 22, 2019 [2 favorites]

I've heard things you people can't imagine. Tomato plants screaming from dehydration in their planter boxes. Grass lawns stressing near acrasis' front door. All these moments will be lost like seeds in dust.

Time to reap.
posted by nubs at 6:34 PM on December 22, 2019 [4 favorites]

Plant pathologist here. I am begging people to stop sending me this article.

Perhaps you should try a lower frequency.
posted by srboisvert at 4:05 AM on December 23, 2019 [4 favorites]

Acrasis - You know, we don't know that you know already unless you tell us what you know and that you know it. Know what I mean?
posted by amtho at 4:08 AM on December 23, 2019

Boy, does that sound like an unknown known.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:05 AM on December 23, 2019

I stopped reading at “still in peer review”.
posted by simra at 1:15 PM on December 22 [1 favorite +] [!]

This is a terrible attitude to have. I'm not saying you should always believe science that's not been peer-reviewed, but I am saying that science is a liar sometimes can be biased and lots of worthy information doesn't always make it through the gauntlet. Maybe there aren't enough peers to do a review, maybe the peers are sexist and ignore the science, maybe the science goes against the powers that be, and the peers are afraid to touch it.
posted by FirstMateKate at 6:44 AM on December 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

My cat screams when he thinks he's hungry. Doesn't mean he's getting fed until it's dinnertime.

If the cats and the plants team up, we are so fucked.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:50 AM on December 23, 2019 [2 favorites]

every year i feel like we learn more and more things that make me thinks The Happening is kind of a prophetic movie
posted by numaner at 11:33 AM on December 23, 2019

every year i feel like we learn more and more things that make me thinks The Happening is kind of a prophetic movie

Ha, when I read The Overstory earlier this year, a truly beautiful and engrossing novel about trees and people's relationship to them, there were multiple moments where I wondered "....is this going to turn into The Happening? I'm not not into it, if so."
posted by yasaman at 11:52 AM on December 23, 2019

maybe the science goes against the powers that be, and the peers are afraid to touch it.

thats not how this works. thats not how any of this works.
posted by lalochezia at 3:02 PM on December 23, 2019 [2 favorites]

“If tomatoes could scream, would we be so cavalier about eating them? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.” - Jack Handy
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:09 PM on December 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

Exogenous linked to the short story up above. Here is the TV version. It scared the pee out of me when I was a kid.
posted by ambulocetus at 4:04 PM on December 24, 2019 [1 favorite]