I am a lifelong tree-hugger. And invariably, whenever I wrap my arms around a tree, what I feel is the subtle strong energy of the whole forest. This is no accident.
From my notes to this video: Trees are not Darwinian individualists, but above and below ground communities. Fungi connect one plant to another plant, cycling carbon and nitrogen back and forth according to who needs it. Diversity of species creates resilience. Giant mother trees are linked to other trees as far as the eye can see, and move some of their legacy to the new generation. By cutting them down to make “2 by 4s”, we don’t allow them to move their energy into the next generations.
2 thoughts on “Do trees communicate? Yes, and in doing so, they help each other survive.”
The link through the connecting fungi at the ends of the root systems, in a sharing of resources, a process partly different than survival of the fittest according to Dr. Susanne Simard, fascinates the possibilities in the search for truth in the life-force energies.
The deeper question on Susanne Simard’s work
http://youtu.be/-8SORM4dYG8
…… is what is the trigger mechanism of apparent “intelligence” that instructs the fungi to continue to move carbon and nitrogen along any given supply path to another tree. How does the supply path pipeline from Tree A know to continue to supply Tree B out of perhaps several Tree A…..Tree Z.
Is the mechanism something like: I have so much I can’t use it all right now so I give the excess to you…. ? Or, is it more like Dr. Graham Fleming’s team at UC Berkeley Lab… he found a photon of light gets a quantum-mechanical “free ride” in the first 600 femto-seconds from contact with leaf to look at all possible paths without measurable loss of energy. This is a copy of their paper:
http://peaceandconflictresolution.googlepages.com/Alayman-6.pdf
A free ride through quantum-mechanical motion, what’s that mean? When you consider the photon of light are constantly hitting the leafs, there would seem to be an endless supply of free rides going on.
Get this. During the free ride, i.e. 600 femto-seconds with no measurable loss of energy, if I read the paper correctly, Fleming’s team was saying the photon looks at every pathway, determines dead from living, what areas to avoid, and shoots the energy to the needed location in the plant.
The next question in my mind is then, if the roots are communicating with other roots connected and somehow communicating with other trees and their needs and photons are constantly evaluating where growth energy needs to be sent maybe both the roots and the leaves are communicating constantly.
Well you say, of course they are Rich we call it photosynthesis. No you don’t get my point. Photosynthesis implies some empirical chemical process with carbon. What I’m fascinated by are the gates or triggers or impulses to evaluate, discern, and allocate. It does not take much imagination to mentally reverse engineer the whole thing to a life force conveyor that holds perfect knowledge of everything … all the way back to what… the Sun? Or is it all the way back to the sub-quantum.
We are getting close to understanding.
Here would be an interesting test, what happens when the Mother Tree needs nutrition and no longer is a net giver but transforms into a net taker. What processes happen then?
Well wait, I just got the answer from my wife who assures me mothers never stop giving, just like Susanne says in her little video, Moms become die and become fertilizer for the kids.