We have time, let’s talk to plants

A recent news item mentioned that the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, had developed an artificial intelligence (AI) methodology to convert brain signals of the speech-impaired into language, the process having the potentiality of interpreting nature’s signals, like photosynthesis among the plants, or their response to external stimuli. Are we then on the cusp of developing an algorithm to communicate with plants and trees?

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That took me to my days of innocent childhood. Taking a cue from Lord Rama beseeching plants and trees to tell him Sita’s whereabouts after her abduction — poochat chale lata taru panti, as depicted by Tulsidas in Ramcharitmanas, I, too, would try to talk to the plants that grew in my garden, with no response from them.

Later, I learnt that Jagdish Chandra Bose had demonstrated, in 1901, before the Royal Society in London, by experiments carried out through the crescograph designed by him, that plants had a life cycle and a reproductive system, and that they ‘felt’ the surroundings and reacted to the external stimuli by generating electrical signals. He later wrote: ‘All around us, the plants are communicating. We just don’t notice it.’

Bose was brilliant. Earlier, he had been denied the credit for the invention of wireless transmission, though he had demonstrated publicly the same in 1895 in Kolkata’s Town Hall by sending electromagnetic waves over a distance of 75 ft through a solid wall, to ring an electric bell and detonate gunpowder. That honour of invention of wireless communication came to be given to Marconi, as Bose had failed to patent his work. Bose then turned to the world of plants.

Plants don’t have a brain but they have a ‘mind’. They exhibit ‘tropic’ and ‘nastic’ responses to stimuli. The former refers to movement in response to a directional stimulus like light (bending towards the source of light), and gravity (roots go with the gravity and stems against it). ‘Nastic’ response relates to non-directional or multiple stimuli such as touch or vibration. It is fast but not long-lasting. Leaves of Mimosa pudica (touch-me-not or chhui-mui) are sensitive to touch. Bose wrote that plants grew quickly when exposed to gentle music.

Plants have been shown to live a community life. Since they are static, they develop community bonding through their roots. Roots of one tree bond with those of the neighbours and supplement the supply of nutrients to one another. Noted botanist Stefano Mancuso declared in 2005 that plant roots had communication receptors much like human neurons.

A friend, while reacting to the IIT-Madras research work, described how a creeper in her Gurugram house, stubborn to grow in barren land, finally yielded to her prayer, perseverance and love, and sprouted shoots. It looks like the rustling of leaves — psithurism — may ultimately give way to a real tête-à-tête with plants and trees in not-too-distant a future!