The surprising way sunflowers work together to get enough light

 

Joel Kontinen

Scientists have known for centuries that sunflowers wobble in seemingly random ways as they grow – but it seems that those movements actually optimise how much light each plant gets

Sunflowers move in a way that helps their neighbours. The seemingly random motion of the plants’ roots and shoots actually minimises shade cover in crowded environments, ensuring that all of them get enough light to grow.

Scientists have known about this plant motion, known as circumnutation, for centuries, but its purpose has always been elusive. “In climbing plants, it’s clear that it’s a search process, searching for a new stick to twine on. But in other plants, it’s not clear if it’s a bug or a feature,” says Yasmine Meroz.

How do sunflowers get enough light? The one who made them gave them some intelligent design with which them could solve this problem.

Leah Crane, 2024. The surprising way sunflowers work together to get enough light | New Scientist 15 August.

 

Sunflowers Co-operate to Get More Space and More Sunshine

Image courtesy of North Carolina Department of Transportation, (CC BY 2.0).



Joel Kontinen

Charles Darwin called the origin of flowering plants an abominable mystery as they did not fit in well with his naturalistic thinking.

Flowers appear suddenly and fully formed in the fossil record. Even the earliest flowers look very modern.

New research has shown that sunflowers know how to work together in a way that benefits all of them. Antonio Hall, a crop eco-physiologist at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and colleagues noticed a strange zig zag pattern that

“starts early in growth, when one ‘pioneer’ plant leans about 10 degrees from the vertical to escape a neighbour’s shade. The plants on either side of the pioneer sense the change to their own light and lean in the opposite direction to escape the pioneer’s shade, and the alternation cascades outwards.”

This way, sunflowers were able to produce 25 to 50 per cent more seeds than those that couldn’t use this strategy.

Intelligent solutions like these remind us of the Designer, the God of the Bible, who is perfect in all His deeds.

Design features in sunflowers and other flowers challenge naturalistic explanations.

So do the amazing traits we see in trees: they sleep and make self-assembling solar panels.

Source:

Holmes, Bob. 2017. Sunflowers work together to avoid overcrowding and soak up rays. New Scientist (10 July).