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Technofile : Electric tomatoes

29 November 1997

By giving electric shocks to just one leaf, researchers can incite an entire
tomato plant to produce natural insecticides. The finding may provide a new way
to protect crops from pests.

Eric Davies and his colleagues at North Carolina State University in Raleigh
showed that the signal to produce the insecticides is transmitted electrically
throughout the plant (Planta, vol 202, p 402).

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