Can Your Plants Scream In Pain?
Swedish startup Sonicflora is developing technology that listens to the ultrasonic sounds plants emit to understand what they need to stay healthy.
According to Sonicflora CEO and co-founder Robin Jansson, quiet plants are generally healthy plants. When plants become stressed, they begin producing more ultrasonic sounds, and the greater the stress, the louder they get.
Take dehydration, for example. As a plant runs low on water, negative pressure builds within its tissues, creating tiny air bubbles. When those bubbles form and burst, they generate airborne ultrasonic signals — what Jansson describes as an “ultrasonic melody.”
To train its AI models, Sonicflora placed healthy plants in soundproof chambers and then introduced specific stressors while recording the resulting sounds. So far, the company has focused primarily on drought stress, but it is also exploring other factors such as excessive wind, too much or too little sunlight, diseases, mold, and pest infestations.
The goal is simple: detect plant distress long before visible symptoms appear. With enough data, growers could intervene earlier, improving plant health while reducing wasted resources.
For now, Sonicflora is concentrating on indoor tomato crops, where capturing and analyzing plant sounds is easier. But the technology could eventually help farmers monitor a wide range of crops by listening for signs of trouble that would otherwise go unnoticed.
No more dead Cacti for me!
Lana Backman
