When Plants Go to War

That's the one. I couldn't think of it the other day to add to a previous comment. It's really eye opening and shows an aspect of plants that you really never expected. When I smell a freshly mowed lawn, I'm reminded of that documentary.

The foremost chapter is especially good at exploring these themes, which I believe is available elsewhere as a short story. Its inspiration, an anecdote of Burke's where her houseplants had been found to attack and starve each other, shines through quite clearly: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=686...

Mentioning it in this context probably ruins part of the suspense, but this all reminds me of this short story: http://compellingsciencefiction.com/stories/seedsofwar.html

Only if they are different species. Root fusion is a thing and it can help lift young trees up to the canopy by slipping them extra sugars through the root system.

Two vivid demonstrations of this are albino trees that grow despite having no chlorophyll of their own, and living tree stumps - the stump scars over, yet never grows branches of its own, because it is fused to a sibling nearby. I’ve seen pictures of both, but have only seen the latter in person.

Same with a lawn. Certain plants like clover have advantages like not requiring much nitrogen. Many grasses are very fussy and need good soil to thrive. But the grass finds its advantage in that it can grow taller than clover and therefore block out the sun. As the grass blade gets longer it is able to collect more sun (surface area grows) and establish deeper roots and block out the clover even better.

Many people use a variety of chemicals to hold weeds at bay. But a well watered lawn that is regularly fortified with organic nitrogen and kept at a decent length will more or less prevent most weeds from establishing. Many people cut their lawn way too short, removing the grasses advantage.

There’s a fantastic board game on this theme, for anyone interested in such things.

Players can only grow their plants or spread seeds in spaces that receive light. Plants obscure light, the bigger the plant, the bigger the shadow area. The sun moves around the board each turn. All this means some very simple rules lead to some wonderfully complex emergent gameplay, where you’re trying to time actions against the sun’s movement to maximise light intake, while having to deal with other player’s actions unpredictably altering the patterns of shade.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/218603/photosynthesis

from a different article:

>The roots of the black walnut tree emit a chemical known as juglone. This chemical is toxic to many other plants, and can stunt them or kill them in as little as a month. The toxic area around mature black walnut trees is usually a 50- to 60-foot radius around the trunk, but can be as much 80 feet.

> but it is true that some trees waste product is bioactive and suppresses other plants

That's not waste product. That's just product.

Allelopathy, of which the black walnut tree is one of the most notorious.

I have heard it described as ranching or herding, since the ants feed off of the secretions produced by the mites (also aphids IIRC). The ants will move the insects to places on the plant they think will be most fruitful.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/plant-problems/pests/insect...

On my todo list is investigating a claim I saw that aphids are more prevalent on plants that have access to too much fixed nitrogen.