Effect of plant interaction on wind-induced crop motion.

Plant motion due to wind affects plant growth, a phenomenon called thigmomorphogenesis. Despite intensive studies of the turbulence over plant canopies, the study of plant motion induced by wind has often been limited to individual trees or cereal plants. Few models of global canopy motions are available. Moreover the numerical analysis of models that are based on individual stems becomes time consuming when dealing with crops. A model of motion within the canopies is proposed here using a wave propagation equation within a homogenized continuous medium, and a forcing function representing turbulent gusts advected over the canopy. This model is derived from a discrete model of a set of plant shoots represented as individual oscillators, including elastic contacts between shoots. Such contacts induce nonlinearities into the wave equation. A new experimental method to measure stem dynamical properties and elastic collision properties is presented with an illustration on alfalfa stems. Results obtained modeling plant motions in an alfalfa crop are presented.