Plants have been shown to respond to different types of music and sound waves. Experiments found that plants exposed to music grew more quickly and had increased biomass and crop yields, with the greatest effects seen from classical violin music. However, plants exposed to loud rock music exhibited abnormal growth and damage. While plants do not consciously perceive music, the vibrations from sound waves may stimulate cellular movement in plants and influence their growth and development through physical effects on their tissues and cells. Some commercial growers play classical music for crops, believing it enhances growth, though more research is still needed.
1. Introduction
• Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. It produces beauty
of expression, emotion in significant forms through the elements of rhythm,
melody, harmony and colour.
• A property of living things is that they respond to stimuli.
• Plants are complex multicellular organisms considered as sensitive as
humans for initial assaying of effects and testing new therapies.
• Sound is known to affect the growth of plants and plants respond to music
the same as humans do.
• It also receives the same sound waves and could in fact be receiving some
form of stimuli.
• Music can cause drastic changes in plants metabolism. Plants enjoy music,
and they respond to the different types of music and its wave-length.
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2. • The cabbage and cucumber at the seedling and maturity stages were
treated with music, and it was found that oxygen uptake by the plants
was significantly increased at both stages.
• Different types of sound enhanced plant survival, directed plant root
growth, and shorted plant germination ,thus sound influenced plant
development.
• It has also been shown that certain sounds can affect fruit
development.
• Sound has played a role in altering plant cell cycle, stomatal opening,
growth hormone release, enzyme and hormone activity, immune
function, RNA content, and transcript levels.
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4. Positive Effect of Music on Plants
• 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.
• Singh repeated the experiment with field crops using a particular type
of raga played through a gramophone and loudspeakers. The size of
crops increased to between 25 to 60% above the regional average.
• Through his several experiments, Singh concluded that the sound of
the violin has the greatest impact.
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5. 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.
• Working around the same time as Singh, Canadian engineer Eugene
Canby exposed wheat to J.S. Bach's violin sonata and observed a 66%
increase in yield. Canby's research reinforces Singh's findings.
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6. Do Plants Like Rock Music?
• In a 1973 experiment by Dorothy Retallack, then a student of
Professor Francis Brown, three groups of plants were exposed to
various types of musical sounds.
• For one group, Retallack played the note F for an 8-hour period.
• For the second group, she played similar note for three hours.
• The third controlled group remained in silence.
• The first group died within two weeks, while the second group was
much healthier than the controlled group.
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7. • Retallack later replicated the experiment with rock music (like Led
Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix) on a variety of plants.
• She observed abnormal vertical growth and smaller leaves. She also
observed the plants to have damage similar to that associated with
excessive water uptake.
• In the experiment, marigolds died within two weeks.
• No matter which way they were turned, plants leaned away from the
rock music source.
• These findings were documented in Retallack's 1973 book The Sound
of Music and Plants.
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9. Music for Plant Growth in Practice
• DeMorgenzon wine estate in Stellenbosch, South Africa, uses baroque
music to enhance the ripening process.
• They believe the vibrations help not just of the plants but also in the
soil and produce good fungi and bacteria in the soil that are vital for
healthy vines, which encourages better and stronger root development,
resulting in vigorous growth and better fruit.
• Many commercial growers play music for their crops, regardless of the
fact that there are no reliable studies to support the idea.
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10. How Can Plants Hear?
• Sound is transmitted in the form of waves that travel through a
medium, such as air or water.
• The waves cause the particles in this medium to vibrate. When you
switch on your radio, the sound waves create vibrations in the air that
cause your ear drum to vibrate.
• This pressure energy is converted into electrical energy for the brain to
translate into what you understand as musical sounds.
• the pressure from sound waves create vibrations that could be picked
up by plants. Plants would not "hear" the music; they would feel the
vibrations of the sound wave.
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11. Vibrations and Protoplasm
• Protoplasm, the translucent living matter of which all animals and
plant cells are composed, is in a state of perpetual movement.
• The vibrations picked up by the plant might speed up the
protoplasmic movement in the cells.
• This stimulation then could affect the system and improve
performance, such as the manufacture of nutrients that develop a
stronger and better plant.
• Different forms of music have different sound wave frequencies and
varying degrees of pressure and vibration.
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12. • Louder music, like rock, features
greater pressure, which some
people think might have a
detrimental effect on plants.
Imagine the effect of strong wind
on a plant compared to a mild
breeze.
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13. Playing Music in Vineyards for Grape Production
• In 2008, a 91-hectare vineyard, DeMorgenzon wine estate in
Stellenbosch, South Africa, experimented with two vineyard blocks,
exposing one to baroque music and the other to no music at all.
• This allowed the vineyard owner to monitor and observe any
differences in the production.
• The musical repertoire consisted of 2,473 pieces of classical baroque
music.
• With this vast collection, they could play the music nonstop for 7.5
days without repeating.
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14. • Another vineyard, Paradiso di Frassina in Tuscany, Italy, uses classical
music to get better production from its vineyards.
• They observed that plants mature faster when exposed to the soothing
sounds of Mozart, Vivaldi, Haydn, and Mahler when compared to a
controlled site.
• This project to wire the vineyard for musical sound started in 2001 as
an attempt to keep pests away.
• However, when they saw better and improved plants and fruits, the
project continued as a 'productivity tool'.
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16. • Music is not ecologically relevant for plants, so we shouldn’t
expect them to be tuned in to it. But there are sounds that, at
least theoretically, it could be advantageous for them to hear.
These include the vibrations produced by insects, such as a
bee’s buzz or an aphid’s wing beat, and minuscule sounds
that might be created by even smaller organisms.
• — Daniel Chamovitz
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