Companion Planting

Companion Planting - possible methodology

It is known that certain plants when placed/planted near each other have a mutually beneficial effect on/for each other.

Furthermore it has been observed that certain cultures (currently or in the past) knew how to combine more than just two plants in a companion planting situation - so reaping greater benefits for all the plants involved.

Unfortunately no one seems to know how these people worked out which plants were of assistance to which others.

A thought:-

Lie detector equipment (and more sensitive derivatives) has been used to measure plant responses -

Some work has been done testing how plants respond to threats &/or help for plants of other species - and there is evidence that certain plants respond more to what is happening to one sort of plant than another.

Might it be the case that when two plants have a measurably greater response to what is happening to each other - that these plants would benefit (in terms of health, growth rate, crop yield, etc) if planted near each other?

I have no idea if this is the case - it is simply a hypothesis - but perhaps it might yield beneficial results if proved correct -

(Beneficial results possibly including less pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers/etc being required......)

As an afterthought - maybe those with a "green thumb" (the people who can just get things to grow) have hands so sensitive that they can somehow understand plants via the same mechanism that plants communicate internally - the person "reads" the plant via a form of plant "braille" (to use an analogy)? Maybe this ability - raised to awareness in other cultures is what enabled them to develope companion planting to levels beyond our modern (less tuned in/sensitive) abilities?