Freshly mown grass spreads a specific smell, which comes from substances that a plant makes when it is attacked, for example by an insect, a fungus or a lawn mower.
Plants make these substances to communicate: by spreading them, they let neighboring plants know that there is a risk of danger.
Vaccination for plants
Researchers at the Faculty of Bio-Engineering (UGent) have discovered that these substances can also be used to increase plant resistance. “You could consider it as a kind of biological vaccination of a plant,” says Maarten Ameye, who worked for four years on this doctoral research.
Greener crop protection
The bioengineer examined whether the substances – so-called green leaf volatiles – have a protective effect on wheat and rice, two of the main agricultural crops.
“We found that wheat and rice had a higher resistance to a number of diseases and fungi after we had exposed them to green leaf volatiles,” says Ameye. “By applying these substances to plants, we take another step towards a more innovative and sustainable way of protecting crops, and for a greener agriculture in general,” Ameye concludes.
