If only plants could talk, what tidings they could share! Fortunately for farmers, an agricultural company has ‘translated’ the biochemical signal related to certain plant behavior, allowing them to ‘listen’ to plants cries for water when they’re thirsty.

It has the capacity to reduce water use in any system, from a well-manicured lawn to a rural vegetable farm in North Africa, and compared to drip irrigation which is based on a similar idea, it can reduce water use by 30-50%, revolutionizing the science and methods of irrigation in the face of a warming climate, longer droughts, and water shortages.

Responsive Drip Irrigation (DRI) has designed a watering system that installs tubes under the earth filled with pore-like depressions. As plants begin to get thirsty they produce a certain chemical in their roots. The micropores in the tubes in turn detect this chemical and release a water drip that will continue until it detects the plants have drunk their fill.