21-Oct-2002
Excerpt: What is not yet known, however, is whether plants growing under natural (or agricultural) conditions respond directly to volatile signals from other plants. Many of the recent experiments on this question have been conducted under laboratory conditions that artificially (and, possibly, artifactually) raise the concentrations of the volatile compounds under consideration. Simple calculations of biogenic flux and turbulent diffusion rates suggest that most plants growing outdoors see concentrations of biogenic volatiles several orders of magnitude lower than those commonly used in lab and growth chamber experiments.
- Plants Talk--But Can They Listen?, Lerdau, Manuel, Science 2002 298: 361-363