sensory abilities of plants and ethics

I am posting this article hoping it had not already been posted on the sensory abilities of plants because is opening thoughts for me on who much we do not know and affirming my reverence for life, my consciousness of what role I play in life, and spirituality . So I thought it might be worth a look and maybe discussion?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html?_r=1&

This video was already posted on the forums but it is relevant to this discussion:

That was an enjoyable read


What was the question?

Discuss?

"Plants “forage” for resources like light and soil nutrients and “anticipate” rough spots and opportunities. By analyzing the ratio of red light and far red light falling on their leaves, for example, they can sense the presence of other chlorophyllated competitors nearby and try to grow the other way. Their roots ride the underground “rhizosphere” and engage in cross-cultural and microbial trade."

This bit was pretty mind blowing

oh, and

"Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues did labeling experiments to clock a plant’s systemic response time and found that, in less than 20 minutes from the moment the caterpillar had begun feeding on its leaves, the plant had plucked carbon from the air and forged defensive compounds from scratch."

That's nuts.

This is a great read worthy of discussion. Regarding ethics? Grow just more than you need to eat and let some of them go to seed.

Is it the Jains who only eat fruit and nuts? I'm an omnivore myself, but I think it's nice to try to avoid causing suffering.

Death is a subject that our culture has trouble with. It's been a journey for me to get to the understanding I have now. I was a vegetarian and later a vegan when I learned about factory farms and feedlots.

There is the death of the individual (plant or animal) to consider and then there is the death of ecosystems.

That book "the secret life of plants" had an effect on my understanding long ago. The author talks about studies showing that plants recognize individual people in a measurable way, and that they can even sense their people taking off and landing in an airplane.

All these discussions interest me, and what I walk away with is twofold:

-there is a lot we don't know
-kindness matters