 "Listen to what your plants are 'saying' through this device! - Watch video")
(Image for representational purposes only) New Delhi: It is said that talking to your plants will help them grow faster. But what if they talk back to you?
Yes, this can actually become a reality, thanks to Vivent, a company which has come up with a device which provides plants with a 'voice'.
The device is being seen as a means with which we will be able to track and monitor plant activity and in turn, understand and manage them better.
PhytlSigns, as the device is called, uses two electrodes, one inserted into the soil and the other attached to a leaf or stem, to measure the voltage in a particular plant.
As soon as the electrodes detect the change in voltage, a speaker attached to the device will let out a high-pitched squeal. The higher the wail, the faster the change.
But why these shifts in plants take place and the reason behind their wailing has scientists puzzled. Gerhard Obermeyer, a plant biophysicist at the University of Salzburg in Austria, says that, “When and why a plant uses electrical signals, and their role in plant communication, is not well understood,” New Scientist reported.
As per New Scientist, Edward Farmer, a plant biologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, has attempted to verify that the signals detected by the device are really coming from the plants. In a lab, he recorded electrical events in plants in response to being wounded, then compared the signals with PhytlSigns. “The PhytlSigns device picked these signals up very well,” he says. “The device also detects smaller signals, most of which have no known biological function.”
Check out the plants “talking” in the demo video below!
(Video courtesy: New Scientist)
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