clhs sciblog

Scientists have discovered that walnut trees have there own way of dealing with stress. However, unlike humans, who take aspirin when they have a fever, walnut trees produce methyl salicylate, which is a chemical form of aspirin. This is a walnut tree’s way of responding to stress, like a drought, or even a change in temperature. The walnut trees can also communicate with other trees when they release methyl salicylate into the atmosphere. It is the trees way of warning surrounding trees about environmental dangers. The methyl salicylate can even help the tree resist and recover from disease. These discoveries raise the possibility that farmers may be able to monitor plants to find early signs of disease, insects infestation, or other stresses. Farmers can do this with a sensitive warning signal.

I think that this disovery of walnut trees can be very beneficial to the agricultural world. We will be able to apply it to many other plant to discover if there may be any problems in the plants that may kill them. Crops may become much more plentiful, because farmers will know what do to keep the plants from dieing. If farmers discover a problem in a plant, they can easily solve the problem before it takes over the whole crop. This understanding of plant stress can improve our economy by giving us more plentiful crops, whatever they may be.