 His team wondered if plants can communicate to their neighbors of nearby stressful environmental conditions.To investigate this, Novoplansky and his team set up a “split root” experimental design, in which a plant's roots were split between two pots (say, Pot A and Pot B).A second plant's roots were then placed between two pots, such that half its roots were in the same pot as Plant 1 (Pot B), and half its roots in a new pot (Pot C).