Plant-initiated, cognitive watering is provided, which includes ascertaining tensile stress on a root wall of a plant, and determining whether the tensile stress on the root wall of the plant reaches a specified threshold. Based on determining that the tensile stress on the root wall of the plant reaches the specified threshold, the method includes facilitating increasing water content in soil around the plant. In one or more implementations, the method may be implemented via a cognitive watering system, which controls the increasing of water content in soil around the plant based, for instance, on data analytics.
