Legumes are crops of significant global importance for ensuring food security, promoting sustainable production, and enhancing cropping efficiency within diverse agroecosystems. The pulse pea (Pisum sativum L.) is highly valued for its protein and micronutrient content, ranking third in global cultivation after soybeans and beans, with production mainly present in temperate regions. Pea production can be afflicted by crop losses due to biotic and abiotic stress factors, leading to an increased demand for improved defense systems. To cope with environmental stresses, plants have evolved several defense mechanisms, including the production of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are key in plant-to-plant communication and environmental interactions. Despite the growing interest in the characterization of plant VOCs in legumes, there has been a paucity of research on the emissions and functional roles of VOCs produced by peas, either constitutively or in response to various factors such as insects, pathogens, drought, and heat. In this review, we focused on the emission patterns and potential biological functions of VOCs produced by peas in response to various stimuli. Moreover, we discuss mass spectrometry techniques currently used or with potential applications for the study of pea VOCs. The emission of specific VOCs in response to external stimuli suggests a precise involvement in pea defense mechanisms. What emerges from this essay is that further functional studies are needed to enhance and exploit the potential of VOCs for sustainable applications, such as insect repellency, pathogen inhibition, and signaling in pea plant defense.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) play a central role in plant communication and ecology, acting as a chemical language that mediates interactions with other organisms and responses to environmental stimuli. Analyzing changes in the plant volatilome enables the effective differentiation between biotic and abiotic stresses. Consequently, monitoring VOC emissions offers valuable insights into plant signaling pathways and health status. These insights position this approach as a promising strategy for improving crop protection. Direct infusion (DI) online analytical techniques, such as proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) and adduct ionization mechanism mass spectrometry (AIM-MS), have been developed to detect and characterize VOCs in real time. Here, we evaluated the suitability of PTR-MS and AIM-MS for monitoring VOC emissions in pea plants (Pisum sativum L.). Comparative analysis revealed that AIM-MS, a recently developed technology, detected a higher number of distinct signals than PTR-MS. Annotation of detected and significant AIM-MS signals indicated a predominance toward those that were putative lipids-derived and amino acids-derived, whereas PTR-MS signals were primarily associated with putative phenolic compounds. These findings suggest that the newly developed AIM reactor offers a broader detection range and may enhance our ability to monitor plant VOC emissions. Consequently, AIM-MS emerges as a promising tool for the real-time assessment of pea plant health and stress responses. Further efforts are needed to improve the portability of DI-MS techniques and to integrate them with GC-MS techniques. Overall, these efforts will allow this technology to be exploited for plant protection in compromised environments.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are produced by plants in response to abiotic and biotic stress stimuli. Two possible modes of action against plant pathogens have been reported for VOCs, such as the induction of plant resistance and direct inhibition of pathogen growth. The volatiles 2-phenylethanol, β-cyclocitral, and linalool exhibited inhibitory activity against downy mildew on grapevine leaf disks; however, their efficacy on whole plants remains unknown. The efficacy of the three VOCs against downy mildew was evaluated on potted grapevines under greenhouse conditions. Fumigation with VOCs in a limited air volume showed high efficacy for linalool and, to a lesser extent, for 2-phenylethanol and β-cyclocitral against Plasmopara viticola infections. However, VOCs showed no effect against P. viticola when applied as a liquid spray. In contrast, a standardized VOC dosage in a limited air volume led to a reduction in downy mildew severity, suggesting that improvements in application and formulation methods are required to allow long-lasting release and persistence of VOCs after application.

Understanding plant behaviour requires the integration of multiple phenotypic and physiological signals measured over time under controlled conditions. However, different plant signals are typically studied using separate experimental setups, limiting temporal alignment and integrative analyses. We present Mind(the)Plant, a modular experimental facility designed for the synchronized, long‐term acquisition of multimodal plant data, including three‐dimensional shoot kinematics, above‐ and below‐ground volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and root imaging. Its modular architecture is designed to accommodate additional acquisition modules, such as electrophysiological signalling, as future extensions. The platform integrates a controlled growth environment with stereovision imaging, high‐resolution time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry and custom rhizocameras. These components are connected through a unified network infrastructure that ensures synchronized acquisition and centralized data handling. We validate the performance of each acquisition module through multi‐week recordings, demonstrating high‐temporal stability, reliable stereovision synchronization, effective isolation of VOCs signals and robust operation of below‐ground imaging. We further illustrate the analytical potential of the platform using a one‐day continuous multimodal acquisition combining shoot kinematics, above‐ground VOC emissions, rhizocameras observations and environmental data. Mind(the)Plant provides a novel methodological framework for studying plant behaviour, signalling and phenotypic plasticity in ecological and evolutionary research. By enabling coordinated measurements of multiple plant response modalities, the platform supports investigations of dynamic plant‐environment and plant–plant interactions from a behavioural perspective.