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Do plants like being touched?

Your plants really dislike when you touch them, apparently. A new study out of the La Trobe Institute for Agriculture and Food has found that most plants are extremely sensitive to touch, and even a light touch can significantly stunt their growth, reports Phys.org.

treehugger.com - Plants Really Don't Like to Be Touched - Treehugger

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There are a lot of New Agey gardening tips that abound. Some gurus recommend playing music for your houseplants, or having conversations with them, or even giving them gentle massages or an intimate touch now and then. Most of these practices are probably more for the benefit of the gardener than the garden, but generally innocuous enough. That is, except for one. Your plants really dislike when you touch them, apparently. A new study out of the La Trobe Institute for Agriculture and Food has found that most plants are extremely sensitive to touch, and even a light touch can significantly stunt their growth, reports Phys.org. It's a finding that flies in the face of an age old green thumb myth, but La Trobe researcher Jim Whelan, who led the new study, says that his research is conclusive, and that we've got a lot still to learn about the growth of plants. "The lightest touch from a human, animal, insect, or even plants touching each other in the wind, triggers a huge gene response in the plant," he said. "Within 30 minutes of being touched, 10 per cent of the plant's genome is altered. This involves a huge expenditure of energy which is taken away from plant growth. If the touching is repeated, then plant growth is reduced by up to 30 per cent."

Why plants respond this way

Whelan and his team are still trying to figure out why plants respond, and on the genetic level, so strongly. They do have some theories, however. "We know that when an insect lands on a plant, genes are activated preparing the plant to defend itself against being eaten," said Dr. Yan Wang, co-author on the study. He continued: "Likewise, when plants grow so close together that they touch one another, the retarded growth defense response may optimize access to sunlight. So, for optimal growth, the density of planting can be matched with resource input." Until more research is done, especially research that looks at the genetic mechanisms at play in these responses, it's all just speculation at this point. Still, the findings might already lead to new methodologies for how agriculturalists handle their crops, to best promote healthier growth. It's worth noting that while the study found that plants often respond to just a single touch in these negative ways, it's really repeated touching that causes lasting stunted growth. That's because the plants are looking for patterns in the touching, to distinguish harmful touch from random touch. So it doesn't have to weigh on your conscience each time you accidentally brush up against a bush during a jog through the woods. The study certainly gives a whole new meaning to the idea of tree-hugging, though.

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What is a fancy word for friend?

acquaintance, ally, associate, buddy, classmate, colleague, companion, cousin, partner, roommate, advocate, backer, patron, supporter, chum, cohort, compatriot, comrade, consort, crony.

dictionary.com - Friend | 19 Definitions & Meanings - Dictionary.com

historical usage of friend

Friend and fiend have identical formations: They are both in origin present participles used as nouns, Old English frēond (also frīend ) for friend, and fēond (also fīend ) for fiend. The two nouns even occur together in Old English alliterative verse: Se fēond and se frēond “the fiend and the friend.” Frēond “friend, close acquaintance” has many cognates in Germanic: Old Frisian friūnd, Old Dutch friunt, Old High German friunt, German Freund, Gothic frijonds. Frēond comes from the Old English verb frēogan (also frēon ) “to love, free, set free,” and is a derivative of the Germanic root fri-, frī- (and suffixed form frija- ), which is also the source of English free (the progression of senses is “beloved,” then “one of the loved ones,” then “one not a slave, free”). Old English fēond originally meant “enemy, foe” (and so was the opposite of friend ), and especially in Old English poetry, “Satan, the Devil” (in Beowulf the devil is referred to as fēond moncynnes “the enemy of mankind”). Fēond has many cognates in Germanic: Old Frisian fiand, Dutch vijand, German Feind, all meaning “enemy.” Fēond comes from the Old English verb fēogan “to hate,” from a Germanic root fī - (from a very complicated Proto-Indo-European root pē-, pēi-, pī- “to hurt, harm”).

Etymologically speaking, then, friend and fiend are acquaintances, and not relatives.

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