Researchers have recorded the sound of plants "screaming" during harvest. Instead of the identical sound produced by people, there is a popping or clicking sound in ultrasonic frequencies that are outside the range of human beings.
According to a study published in Cell by Israeli researchers at Tel Aviv University, the sound intensity increases when the plant experiences stress. It was mentioned that this could be one method by which plants express their distress about the environment around them.
The university's evolutionary scientist, Lilach Hadany, spoke with Science Direct on the 2023 study that "Even in a quiet field, there are sounds that we don't hear, and those sounds carry information. Some animals can hear these sounds, so there is the possibility that a lot of acoustic interaction is occurring".
"Plants interact with insects and other animals all the time, and many of these organisms use sound for communication, so it would be very suboptimal for plants to not use sound at all," she added.
Plants experience enormous changes when they are stressed, and strong aromas are one of those changes. They are also capable of changing shape and color.
However, Ms. Hadany's group was interested in learning whether plants might make noise as well. To learn more, they observed tobacco and tomato plants in both stressed and unstressed circumstances. Plants that had their stems chopped off or that were severely dry would fall under their definition of distressed.
After that, the researchers built a machine learning system to distinguish between the noises made by stressed, chopped, and dehydrated plants.
The scientists discovered that the disturbed plant's sound could be heard over a meter away and was much too high-pitched for humans to distinguish, according to the Science Alert article.
It’s unclear yet how plants make the noises.
Researchers discovered that in the meanwhile, unstressed plants don't make much noise and quietly go about their plant thing.
