Plants “Scream” When Uprooted, Scientists Record Sound For First Time

The sound of plants “screaming” when harvested has been recorded by scientists. The sound is not the same as what is produced by humans; rather, it is an ultrasonic noise that is outside the range of human hearing that pops or clicks.

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 might be one method by which plants express their anguish to the environment around them.

The study discovered that the distressed plant’s sound could be heard over a meter away and was much too high-pitched for humans to distinguish.

“There are actually sounds that we don’t hear, and those sounds carry information, even in a silent field. The university’s evolutionary scientist, Lilach Hadany, told Science Direct of the 2023 study, “There is a possibility that a lot of interaction between the plants and the animals is occurring because there are animals that can hear these sounds.”

“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.

However, Ms. Hadany and her group were interested in learning whether plants can make noise. They observed tobacco and tomato plants in both stressed and unstressed environments to learn more. They defined distressed as including plants with their stems chopped off or that were severely dry.

The sounds made by stressed, chopped, and dehydrated plants were then distinguished by a machine learning system that the researchers trained.

The scientists discovered that the distressed 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.

Right now though, it is not clear how plants are able to make such noises. In the meantime, they discovered that relaxed plants simply hang out and do not appear to make any such sounds.