Plants Fight for Their Lives

It’s 2050. The world population has increased by 2.3 billion to 9.9 billion. Demand for food has risen 70 to 100 percent but a warming planet, extreme weather, and a decrease in arable land is threatening food security. Luckily, farmers can grow crops more densely, increasing yield from smaller plots of available agricultural land.

Packing crops so tightly wouldn’t have been possible three decades earlier. That’s because despite looking docile, plants are actually hypercompetitive. Grow two plants too close together and they start competing for resources like minerals, water, nutrients, and—once they start to shade one another—sunlight. Without adequate light, plants adapt rapidly through what’s called shade avoidance response (SAR). They reallocate energy into growing taller in an effort to harness sunlight, which results in stunted root growth and accelerated flowering