The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

by Zoë Schlanger

Some even point to returning to the old knowledge of companion planting, the practice of paying attention to which plants survive and grow better in the company of other plants—their natural companions. Strawberries offer a clear example of the advantages of companion planting. A strawberry flower is self-fertile; it can produce fruit using its own pollen, or essentially by having sex with itself. It also can cross-pollinate with other strawberry plants, though this requires the help of flying insects. Farmers know that strawberries will produce a third more fruit—and much of it higher quality—when planted beside borage, a medicinal herb that blooms in perfect blue stars. The borage attracts the strawberry’s pollinator; the better, more copious berries emerge when the sexually adaptive strawberry opts to copulate by way of insects rather than with itself. While home gardeners and Indigenous farmers have used companion planting techniques for ages, it is still a rare approach in conventional, large-scale agriculture.