Plants

Playing Music Can Help Plants Grow

By Staff Reporter

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:49:28 +1100

The debate rages on, but have there been answer? Would Korn help corn? Or would Sigur Ros put you roses to sleep? Undercover.fm's undercover agent delves into the flower bed to come up with some answers!

It has long been debated whether exposing soon-to-be newborns to classical music makes them smarter (or “Mozart Effect”). However, some evidence is supporting the idea that music can have a profound effect on the growth of plants instead.

One of the first infamous studies about the music-to-plant relationship was conducted by amateur botanist Dorothy Retallack in the 1970’s. She found that classical and “soft rock” artists stimulated growth of plants, while “acid rock” bands of the era, such as Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, caused the plants to shrivel and die. Her findings are often disputed these days, especially since she believed the plants’ growth or decay to be based on lyrics – to her, the plants were sentient beings that responded to the message of the music, and her bias towards certain types of music and possible lack of scientific controls put her findings into serious question. Still, the idea she proposed lingered.

Broadcasting Music to Fruit Plantation - MOG

It also split into two different ideas:

A: Do plants respond to human thoughts and emotions?

B: Do plants respond to sound?

The first idea (A) has only been supported by pseudoscience, although plants did respond to speech – this is likely caused by carbon dioxide from the speaker’s breath aiding the photosynthesis of the plant. The second idea (B) seems to carry a little more validity.

Numerous studies have found that different types of music (or recorded speech) have an effect on plants. Disagreements in findings arise, though, for which types of music helped and which detracted. Older studies were often conducted from an emotional standpoint – deciding whether plants prefer one artist to another based on taste. These studies found metal or hard rock kill plants, but the hosts of MythBusters found heavy metal to be the most beneficial of all forms of music. Recorded speech also increased plant growth, with little difference between “angry” or “pleasant” vocal tones. All things considered, every greenhouse in their experiment yielded more growth than the other groups (i.e. the greenhouse without any sounds played), and – skeptical as they usually are – they gave the positive relationship between sound and plants a “plausible.”

MOG even put tunes into fruits and juice. By making a MOG mix, you could win the ultimate prize: 100 bottles of their own juice, made from fruit grown to the sounds of their MOG mix. The juice will then be bottled, labeled and sent to your door, along with a 24-month-MOG subscription and a SONOS speaker package.

Check out MOG for even more information and how to make your plants grow!

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