If plants can talk, what does that mean for green roofs and the Colbert Report?

Last week I saw the Colbert Report reference the summary of a research study which begins with the headline “Plants can talk”. Naturally, I had to find out more. If true, what would this mean for anyone working in the horticulture field (like me)? Or anyone or anything that eats vegetables for that matter!

The first line of the article proclaims “plants feel pain”, but as you see, the rest of the summary doesn't exactly say that. Time to head to the source. According to Colbert that's the journal “Trends in Plant Science”. Didn’t find anything there, so I cruised around the net. It took a while but I found more information about this researcher and his work. It seems this particular “study” pops up every few years as new news. Weird!

Finally I hit the jackpot, it looks like the contents of this research study can be found under the title “A Breath test for plants: Photoacoustic trace gas detection and its application in plant biology.” It was presented at the International Conference Breath Gas Analysis for Medical Diagnostics in Dornbirn, Austria on September 2004. That is if this website is to be believed. 

Haven’t put my hands on the article yet and I can’t wait to get to the bottom of this research; if plants respond to stimuli with higher pitched noises, what does that really mean? Can you really equate that with pain or talking?

And wait till I tell Stephen Colbert that he’s been duped by this “new” study!