News  :  October 2002

Music and Musings from Jim Graham...

  Music & Plants

            Over the years I have heard various stories about how music affects the growth of plants. I decided to do a little research on this subject and what I found out was quite remarkable.

          In 1950, at a University in Madras, India, Dr. T. C. Singh was studying through a microscope the live “streaming of protoplasm”, or growth flow, in the cells of plants with transparent leaves. The growth flow would speed up at sunrise and continue to increase throughout the day.

          Dr. Singh wondered if this process would be affected by sound and placed an electrically operated tuning fork 6 ft. in front of a Hydrilla plant. He broadcast the fork’s note for a half hour before sunrise and observed that it increased the growth flow to a speed normally attained much later in the day causing the plant to grow faster and healthier.

          Singh then tried playing some Indian music, composed mostly of violin, flute, and sitar (an Indian guitar-like instrument), to some Mimosa plants. Once again, he played it for a half hour a day just before sunrise and after just two weeks he discovered the plants had grown fifty percent more than plants with no music. He then tried his experiment with different common flowers, vegetables, and fruits and was able to prove, without a doubt, that harmonic waves affect growth, flowering, fruiting, and seed yield of plants.

          These findings led Singh to experiment with field crops, and from 1960 to 1963 he piped Indian music through a loudspeaker to “paddy rice”. They got annual harvests that ranged from 25 to 60 percent higher than the regional average. More of the same experiments yielded 50 percent higher peanut crops, and tobacco crops with a much higher nicotine content.

          In the late 50’s, a Wisconsin Florist named Arthur Locker, began piping music into the greenhouses and observed that his plants grew straighter and germinated quicker. They also bloomed more abundantly and the colors were more vivid than plants without the music.

             A woman named Dorothy Retallack in Colorado experimented with music and plants at the Woman’s College in Denver in the early 70’s. Using three Biotronic control chambers she placed identical plants in each one. She played a constant tone 8 hours a day in the first chamber. In the second, she played the same tone off and on for three of the eight hours, and in the third she played nothing. The first plants died within 14 days. The second plants grew and were healthier than those in the third chamber.

            Next she used two chambers and piped Rock music (Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix) into the first and easy listening into the second. Only 3 hours of music was played in each chamber. After only 5 days the plants with the soothing music were growing very well and the stems were starting to bend toward the speaker. In the Rock chamber the plants had small leaves and were stunted and gangly. After two weeks the soothing music chamber plants were very healthy and were leaning 15 to 20 degrees toward the speaker and after approximately 2 ½ weeks the Rock music plants were all in the last stages of dying.

           She then went on to experiment with different styles of music and found that the plants liked Indian music with sitar, tabla (small Indian drums), and flute the best. They also did well with Classical music and Jazz. They showed no reaction to Country music but they all had the worst reaction to Rock music, sometimes leaning 30 to 70 degrees away from the speaker, like they were trying to get away, and most often dying within a few weeks.

             I found these facts to be very interesting and thought I’d share them so you can draw your own conclusions. I personally feel that a little fertilizer might be a lot easier and achieve the same results.

             I like Rock music and I’m not very fond of most Indian music. However, I’ll bet if I piped some Indian music out into the flower garden everyday, 1/2 hour before sunrise the plants would love it and do well. (I’m sure the neighbors wouldn’t though.)

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Last modified: November 08, 2007