Schneier- Tomato-Plant Security

[Netwörkheäd]

Tomato-Plant Security

I have a soft spot for interesting biological security measures, especially by plants. I've used them as examples in several of my books. Here's a new one: when tomato plants are attacked by caterpillars, they release a chemical that turns the caterpillars on each other: It's common for caterpillars to eat each other when they're stressed out by the lack...
   
   

I have a soft spot for interesting biological security measures, especially by plants. I've used them as examples in several of my books. Here's a new one: when tomato plants are attacked by caterpillars, they release a chemical that turns the caterpillars on each other:

It's common for caterpillars to eat each other when they're stressed out by the lack of food. (We've all been there.) But why would they start eating each other when the plant food is right in front of them? Answer: because of devious behavior control by plants.

When plants are attacked (read: eaten) they make themselves more toxic by activating a chemical called methyl jasmonate. Scientists sprayed tomato plants with methyl jasmonate to kick off these responses, then unleashed caterpillars on them.

Compared to an untreated plant, a high-dose plant had five times as much plant left behind because the caterpillars were turning on each other instead. The caterpillars on a treated tomato plant ate twice as many other caterpillars than the ones on a control plant.

Source: Tomato-Plant Security

[icecream-guy]

sounds like another entry mechanism for toxic substances to enter our bodies and disrupt biological processes.

Here's one recent on phthalates.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/15/health/macaroni-and-cheese-phthalates-analysis-study/index.html

and chicken feathers in your bread, lookup L-Cysteine.
(not looking good for vegans)

[deanwebb]

To be sure, there's a lot of stuff that's 100% natural that's also 100% bad for people. Plants aren't as mindless as people think they are. They can communicate with each other - even with different species of other plants - via complicated chemical messages. This is why, when I garden, I try to use naturally-occurring substances or none at all. Saponified oil (Dr. Bronner's is best, IMO) with cayenne pepper can do wonders for keeping pests away from gardens, but will not have knock-on disruptions throughout the garden because it's not putting in big blasts of chemicals that disrupt normal plant-plant communications.

[icecream-guy]

To be sure, there's a lot of stuff that's 100% natural that's also 100% bad for people. Plants aren't as mindless as people think they are. They can communicate with each other - even with different species of other plants - via complicated chemical messages. This is why, when I garden, I try to use naturally-occurring substances or none at all. Saponified oil (Dr. Bronner's is best, IMO) with cayenne pepper can do wonders for keeping pests away from gardens, but will not have knock-on disruptions throughout the garden because it's not putting in big blasts of chemicals that disrupt normal plant-plant communications.

Gardens Alive has a lot of good products for the organic gardener, I've been using their products for years.