Can plants talk? A new research found that plants “make clicking noises to communicate” with other plants, aside from reacting to sounds.

Dr Monica Gagliano, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Western Australia, wants to “show that the roots of young plants emit and react to particular sounds.” Dr Gagliano has teamed with Professor Daniel Robert at the University of Bristol in the UK and Professor Stefano Mancuso at the University of Florence in Italy.

“Everyone knows that plants react to light, and scientists also know that plants use volatile chemicals to communicate with each other, for instance, when danger − such as a herbivore − approaches,” Dr Gagliano said.

“I was working one day in my herb garden and started to wonder if maybe plants were also sensitive to sounds − why not? − so I decided as a scientist to find out.”

In their research, Dr Gagliano and fellow researchers established that young roots of corn made regular clicking sounds. Young corn roots suspended in water also leaned toward the source of a continuous sound emitted in the region of 220Hz, which is within the frequency range that the same roots emitted themselves.

The general idea behind the research was first put forward by Lyall Watson, a South African botanist, in his 1973 best-seller “Supernature.” In the book, Watson claimed that plants possess emotions that can register on a lie detector. Quite unsurprisingly, scientists then dismissed Watson’s claim as “hippie nonsense.” The research of Gagliano and her colleagues says otherwise.

Their findings will be published in the leading international journal Trends in Plant Science.

Source: University of Western Australia