Several studies have looked at this question, specifically how music effects plant growth. In 1962, Dr. T. C. Singh, head of the Botany Department at India’s Annamalia University, experimented with the effect of musical sounds on the growth rate of plants. He found that balsam plants grew at a rate that accelerated by 20% in height and 72% in biomass when exposed to music.
Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, an Indian plant physiologist and physicist, spent a lifetime researching and studying the various environmental responses of plants. He concluded that they react to the attitude with which they are nurtured. He also found that plants are sensitive to factors in the external environment, such as light, cold, heat, and noise. Bose documented his research in Response in the Living and Non-Living, published in 1902, and The Nervous Mechanism of Plants, published in 1926. In order to conduct his research, Bose created recorders capable of detecting extremely small movements, like the quivering of injured plants, and he also invented the crescograph, a tool that measures the growth of plants. From his analysis of the effects specific circumstances had on plants’ cell membranes, he hypothesised they could both feel pain and understand affection.
The Effect of Music on Seed Development
Dr. T. C. Singh also discovered that seeds that were exposed to music and later germinated produced plants that had more leaves, were of greater size, and had other improved characteristics. It practically changed the plant’s genetic chromosomes!
Canadian engineer Eugene Canby exposed wheat to J.S. Bach’s violin sonata and observed a 66% increase in yield.
The classic book The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird documents many scientific, statistically-significant studies done on the fascinating relationship between sound and music and plants. The right sounds can produce tremendous improvements in growth, and the wrong sounds can do just the opposite. Plants are more aware of their surroundings than we think, probably much more so than us!
George Smith, skeptical botanist and agricultural researcher, planted corn and soybeans in separate greenhouses under controlled conditions and began to experiment with music and plants.
In one greenhouse, he played George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” 24 hours a day, producing thicker, greener plants that weighed 40% more for corn and 24% more for soy. He went on to produce amazing corn harvests using ear-splitting continuous notes at high and low pitches.
Two researchers at the University of Ottawa did trials with high-frequency vibrations in wheat. Plants responded best to a frequency of 5000 cycles a second. They were baffled and could not explain why audible sound had nearly doubled wheat harvests.
Peter Belton, researcher for Canada’s Department of Agriculture, controlled the European corn-borer moth by broadcasting ultrasonic waves. 50% of the corn was damaged in the control plot, and only 5% in the plot with sound. The sound plot also had 60% fewer larvae and was 3” taller on average.
George Milstein found that a continuous low hum at 3000 cycles per second accelerated the growth of most of his plants and even caused some of them to bloom six full months ahead of their normal schedule. On the other hand, he was quite adamant that music for plants couldn’t possibly have an effect, as they “can’t hear.”
List of differents techniques and sounds that can influence plant life
1. Classic music influence
2. Protein and molecular music.
Protein music, special melodies to regulate biosynthesis.
Relation to quantum physics.
3. Sonic Bloom techniques developed by Dan Carlson
4. Ultrasonics and infrasounds experiments.
5. Special resonance frequencies.
Electromagnetic and radio wave effects in relation to sound.
6. Emotional influences with music.
Response of plant growth and health to emotion and attention in relation to music
7. 432 hz tuned music and sound frequencies
Group of farmers in Panjab, India, use music for growing their crops. They don’t use any pesticides anymore and replace it with music. Their crops are healthy and the yields improved. You put around one loudspeaker each 50 meters or 150 feet.
In the study “Tuned in: plant roots use sound to locate water” published in Oecologia, UWA researchers found that plants can sense sound vibrations from running water moving through pipes or in the soil, to help their roots move towards the source of water. The study also revealed that plants do not like certain noises and will move away from particular sounds.
Lead researcher Dr Monica Gagliano from UWA’s Centre of Evolutionary Biology at the School of Animal Biology said water was a basic need for a plant’s survival, and the study showed that sound plays a significant role in helping plants cater to this need.