"Wow" learnings about plants

This week in my classes (to become a certified Organic Master Gardener), we're learning how plants exchange information and material with other plants, bacteria, and fungi, in complex symbiotic relationships. Here are a few random things I'm learning this week, which are 'wow' items to me:

1. N-fixing bacteria live on the plants' roots, extracting N2 from the air. Plants can't do that, but they take the N2 from the bacteria and they give some carbohydrates to the bacteria, in return. Perfect symbiosis. 

2. Also, plants emit CO2 not just through leaves, but also thru roots, and this stores carbon in the soil. It slowly rises and gets released under the forest canopy, where trees prefer it to having to take it in from the air above the canopy. 

3. Grass is toxic to trees, in a manner of speaking. Scientists don't think it's just competition--they believe grass can exude a chemical which retards tree growth, just as some trees do vs other plants. There are complex relationships where some plants ally with other organisms, but sometimes plants and organisms war versus each other. 

I have always kept a large, mulched circle around every tree or grape I plant, and now I know why! If grass grows up to the trunk, it reduces growth by up to 50%. I planted a Northern Red Oak in front, to shade our house on the south side, and it began as a 8" seedling I dug up in an office park bed (it didn't belong there and it would've been removed/killed). It's about 15' tall now, in its 3rd summer. Neighbors don't believe me that it's so young, but it has to be, as I planted it and we've been here only since 2.3 years ago--it has had only ONE full summer so far! Only part of '22 and part of '24. And our soil is terrible. Yes, NRO is a rocket of a tree, but this also shows the power of naturally-enriched soil and mulch.

4. Endophytic fungae live right inside the plant leaves, and produce toxins the plant needs to ward off predators. Plants warn each other when a predator is active (probably via the interconnected fungal web like a telephone system), and the other plants produce that toxin, to make themselves unpalatable to the predator. Just wow. And plants know if other plants are their siblings, or just the same species (they interact with each other differently, on that basis).

I like to say "I don't grow grapes. Grapes already know how to grow. I am only their steward." But now I'm learning more reasons why that's true. And every day that I live, I become more convinced that plants possess a high degree of intelligence. I don't know what else to call it.  Call me weird I know. But it doesn't hurt anything to believe that the plant world--upon which we humans all rely upon for our very survival--is incredibly sophisticated. Perhaps just as much as we are.

Photo shows Nitrogen-fixing bacteria on plant roots. (Photo credie: Finch Frolic Permaculture)