Plants interact with other plants through specialized metabolites also refered to as allelochemicals. Some of these allelochemicals can induce deleterious effects into neighboring plants (a process known as allelopathy), while others can have positive effects. Although the negative impacts of allelochemicals have been widely studied, we know far less about how positive allelochemicals function in interspecific plant-plant interactions. By presenting unpublished data, we unveil the significant role of a major class of maize root-exuded allelochemicals in modulating gene expression and disease severity in neighboring rice plants through a chromatin-based regulatory mechanism. At the same time, positive interactions are also widespread in intraspecifc plant mixtures, and recent evidence points toward a role for an allelochemical-independent mechanism remaining unknown. By leveraging a multidisciplinary approach that combines forward genetics, metabolomics, transcriptomics and reverse genetics, our team endeavors to unravel the genes and the molecular mechanisms governing intraspecific plant-plant interactions in hexaploid wheat, particularly those bolstering plant immunity against prominent infectious threats. On the long-term, we hope to understand how plants recognize their intraspecific neighbors at the molecular level, which could lead to the development of new biosolutions and the optimization of mixtures at the field to foster agroecological crop farming.