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Plants use aromas to help fight pests

Published: 2024-11-24 Author: mysheen
Last Updated: 2024/11/24, Plants seem unconscious, but they help each other. A Japanese research team found that when the leaves of some plants are eaten by pests, they will release specific aromas, causing their companions to produce compounds that hinder the growth of pests.

Plants may not seem conscious, but they help each other. A Japanese research team found that when the leaves of some plants are eaten by pests, they release specific aromas, causing their companions to produce compounds that hinder the growth of pests, thus avoiding being eaten by pests. The discovery could lead to new pesticides that enhance plant resistance.

When some plants encounter pests, their companions around them will respond to defend themselves and increase their resistance to pests, but scientists have never understood the detailed mechanism.

Researchers at Kyoto University and Yamaguchi University reported in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the 28th that they let moth larvae nibble on tomato leaves and let another uneaten tomato plant feel the aroma released by the first tomato plant. It was found that after moth larvae started eating the second tomato plant, their survival rate decreased by about 20{bf} compared with the first plant.

This is the smell of mowing. After investigating more than 7000 components of the aroma released by the first tomato plant, the team found a significant increase in compounds called leaf alcohols in its leaves. Another tomato plant senses leaf alcohol and allows it to combine with sugar in its own leaves, producing a toxic compound that inhibits larval growth and reduces larval survival.

Professor Takayashi Takayashi of Kyoto University, who led the research, pointed out that tomatoes did not produce toxins in advance, but adopted an "energy-saving" defense method. After coming into contact with the aroma released by their peers, they began to absorb leaf alcohol as a toxic raw material, and then combined with sugar in their bodies to produce toxic compounds that resist pests. Rice, eggplant, cucumber and other plants have the same mechanism.

 
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