A recent study, by the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia, has posited that plants can indeed "hear." Two associates, Heidi Appel and Rex Cocroft, found that recordings of the munching noises made by caterpillars eating leaves caused the lab plants to flood their leaves with chemicals that ward off predators
NC State Extensions Tobacco Growers Information website provides reference information about nutrient fertility in tobacco
Flash forward yet again (last time, promise) to the cataclysmic wind-up to this tale
1 St Claire, S., Fayokun, R., Commar, A., Schotte, K., & Prasad, V
Levine in an interview with WebMD