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Kris Willow4 days ago
Podcasts We Lovebrains on

Do plants "fart"?

I had known that plants generally "breathe" and release carbon dioxide at night. But I didn't know that plants also "fart".

Learnt about this listening to this Brains On episode with my kid!

And here's the paper that published the discovery! The findings (from credo paper summary):

The study reveals that many types of terrestrial plants can produce methane under normal oxygen-rich conditions, which was not previously recognized. The authors demonstrate that this methane is formed inside the plant tissues, not by microbes in the soil.

So plants produce methane "farts" in a sense!

(The Brains On hosts were quick to say that despite this, trees/forests are generally carbon sinks i.e. they do not cause global warming 😀)

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