When you water your garden plants, they react directly at the biochemical level. When a knife cuts a stalk of rhubarb, thousands of genes are activated and stress hormones are released.

Unlike humans, plants cannot feel pain, but they still react strongly to mechanical stimuli from human touch, hungry animals, wind and rain, for example. These external factors lead to rapid activation of the plant’s molecular defense system, which can contribute to plants becoming more resilient and flowering later.

Although the phenomenon has been known since Darwin, many question marks remain. A new study published in Scientists progress examined the complex regulatory networks that affect how plant defenses are enhanced by outside influences.

“We exposed the Arabid to gentle brushing, after which thousands of genes were activated and stress hormones were released. We then used genetic screening to find the genes responsible for this process”, explains Olivier Van Aken, a biology researcher in Lund. University.

Previous studies have shown that jasmonic acid, a plant hormone, is an important mediator in tactile signaling. It is also known that jasmonic acid is only one part of the plant’s complex network of tactile responses and that there are several unidentified pathways that have yet to be unveiled. After extensive laboratory work, the researchers were able to identify three new proteins that play a key role in plant response to touch.

“Our results solve a scientific mystery that has eluded molecular biologists around the world for 30 years. We have identified an entirely new signaling pathway that controls a plant’s response to physical contact and touch. Now the search for more pathways continues,” says Essam Darwish, a biology researcher at Lund University.

What possible applications will the new results have? Olivier Van Aken is also studying an age-old Japanese agricultural technology that involves trampling the grain during the growth phase, to obtain more abundant harvests. Researchers believe there is a lot of hidden knowledge about how mechanical stimuli can lead to higher yields and better stress resistance in crops. Knowledge that, in the long term, can transform modern agriculture at its heart.

“Given the extreme weather conditions and pathogen infections that climate change brings, it is of the utmost importance to find new ecologically responsible ways to improve crop productivity and resistance”, concludes Olivier Van Aken.

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Material provided by Lund University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.