How does music affect plant growth?
Washington State University professor of horticulture Linda Chalker-Scott
uses the example of a book on the effect of music on plants as an instance
of ‘bad science’ in one of her articles. In other words, the idea is not based on repeated
experiments, and has not been put to the test of attempts to prove or
disprove it. Many student science fair projects pursue this question. There are many other scientists discussing this, and sites on the topic, too.
The TV show Mythbusters Episode 23 has dealt with this question.
There are also two questions exploring this at the MadSci network, a scientist-staffed question site. Here is an excerpt from the MadSci network’s discussion:
Experiments on the effects of sound or music on plants are very difficult
because you need a lot of replication (number of plants for each
treatment) and
identical environments for each treatment other than the music or sound
level.
That is difficult to achieve even for a professional botanist much less
in a
home or classroom. You also need a statistical analysis to determine if
the
growth differences are real or just due to natural variability. No
botanist has
yet found a beneficial effect of music or sound on plant growth that is
reliably repeatable and statistically significant.
The idea that plants grew better with certain kinds of music apparently
arose in the best selling book, ‘The Secret Life of Plants.’ That book
was filled with incorrect information. Botanists have failed to find that
plants grow better or worse with a particular type of music or that music
has any effect on plants.
While the stories in ‘The Secret Life of Plants’ are intriguing, they are
not based on careful scientific experiments. For accurate scientific
details on plants try a college botany textbook (Stern, 1991) or popular
books on plants written by scientists (Attenborough, 1995; Wilkins,
1988).
Reference:
Attenborough, D. 1995. The Private Life of Plants. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Stern, K.L. 1991. Introductory Plant Biology. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C.
Brown.
Wilkins, M. 1988. Plantwatching: How Plants Remember, Tell Time, Form
Relationships and More. New York: Facts on File.
Professor Ross Koning, who teaches Plant Physiology at Eastern
Connecticut State University has addressed this question at length, too. Here is an excerpt from that site (now archived), as well:
“If plants don’t have music appreciation, do they respond to sound?
It is possible for a plant to respond to the vibrations accompanying
sounds. A short bibliography at the bottom of this page gives you some
references…but to almost ‘nothing to report.’ I emphasize again that
while there ARE responses to sound/vibration in plants, there is NO
controlled study published on the MUSICAL TASTES or MUSIC APPRECIATION by
plants in reputable journals.
One plant that responds to sound-induced vibration is Mimosa pudica, also
known as the ‘sensitive plant.’ Vibrations induce electrical signals
across the leaflets of this plant, and cells at the base of the leaflets
respond to these action potentials osmotically. This response results in
a sharp change in the turgor pressure in these pulvinus cells, and that
pressure change, in turn, results in the folding of the blade at the
pulvinus. Another pulvinus at the base of the petiole may also respond if
the vibration is severe enough. This kind of response is known as
seismonasty.
How would this plant respond in terms of growth if its leaves were kept
closed by constant vibration? If you think very long about photosynthesis
in leaves as the driving force for growth, you will realize that
continuous leaflet closure would inhibit rather than stimulate the growth
of the plant. Indeed loud sounds (vibrations really) have been reported
to negatively impact plant growth (reference below).”