Can Music Affect Plant Growth?

A California State Science Fair project deduced from tests that "Silence grew the best and healthiest followed by spoken word (Harry Potter). Classical Music (Vivaldi Concertos) ended up just under spoken word. Bringing up the rear was a very small and unhealthy plant that was 'listening' to heavy metal and (harsh) world music (Mudvayne and Rammstein)."...

A Wingate University botanist states, "As you probably know, sound is a wave, and more specifically, a pulse wave. This simply means that it is formed by areas of higher and lower pressure in the atmosphere through which it travels. Terms such as "amplitude," when used in reference to sound, are actually referring to the plot of the air pressure versus time on a graph. Now, it is difficult to beleive that such (extremely small) fluctuations in air pressure could have any effect on a plant's growth. There is very little difference, to a plant, in music and ambient noise.

"However, you might want to consider this question from another perspective. It is possible that in an experiment, plants which are exposed to music may grow more than plants that are not. Why? Because even though it is unlikely that the plants themselves respond to the music, their caretakers do! Maybe the plants which are exposed to music receive better care than those which do not. Might be worth looking into!"

According to the Plant Physiology Information Website, "...Plants have no ears to hear and no brain to process or develop musical taste or music appreciation...so any attempts to show relationships between music forms and growth or other responses have met with total failure in the hands of true scientists."

A 1973 book entitled The Secret Life of Plants -- A fascinating account of the physical, emotional, and spiritual relations between plants and man helped rekindle fascination with the ephemeral side of the plant world.

Stevie Wonder released a brilliant double album entitled Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants which served as the sound track for the 1978 Documentary Film, The Secret Life Of Plants.

Our suggestion: Try playing Stevie Wonder's "Secret Life" record to your plants!



"Grow for Me" from The Little Shop of Horrors


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What Other Visitors Have Said

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does music affect plant growth?  Not rated yet
umm....i do think music DOES affect plant growth , well the results show that they do , but im in the 8th grade and im doing a science fair project on ...

zactuc1 from runescape  Not rated yet
Hi, this is zactuc1 from the famous online game "runescape"... I am here to say that my plants have grown five more inches than plants that don't receive ...

Music Affects Plant Growth  Not rated yet
I did a STEM Expo project on how music affects plant growth. While one plant grew with heavy metal music and the other with classical. I will post my results ...

experiment  Not rated yet
i did this experiment with heavy metal, classical and a control group. the heavy metal plant did much better than the other two.

advice  Not rated yet
i would like to do this experiment for my biology assignment but im not sure how to do it. if anybody has an advice for me it would be very helpful =)....

Music effect  Not rated yet
I'm 10 and i got almost the same results for both of my control and experimental groups for my science fair

k  Not rated yet
wow that helped

k  Not rated yet
wow that helped

Plant Growth  Not rated yet
The plant's growth depends on different things like if you sing, make the plant 'listen' to a boom box or just play any string or woodwind instruments....

icu  Not rated yet
how tall did the plants grow i need to know so badly this has helped me a little but not that much on a side note good info thanx a lot

i want to do this project  Not rated yet
hey i think that project seems really cool and now that's the project im going to do for science fair! But what should i call it will you please write ...

Biology H project  Not rated yet
I performed an experiment over the course of 30 days for my 10th grade biology class (I finished one week ago) to test English Ivy growth against (a) classical ...

uhh  Not rated yet
Can plants grow music?

journey through the secret life of plants  Not rated yet
i do not like horrors they are not good

AnimeFangurl123:D  Not rated yet
Well i'm doing the same project and so far i looked up all music that has been getting big hits for plants growth and classical, rock, hip-hop, and heavy ...

My Experiment  Not rated yet
I've just about finished a similar experiment, and my results are very different to the ones shown on this page.

We are testing 4 plants, one control ...

Plants grow different according to the type of music played for them.  Not rated yet
yes classical music has the best effect on plants over all the other types of music i did an experiment on that and it was posted true after all of the ...

hi  Not rated yet
thnx 4 the idea!

This is Bogus  Not rated yet
In My Experiment silence grew the least Plants Exposed To ICP Grew Best

does music affect plants growth  Not rated yet
i think yes it will affect it

sweetness  Not rated yet
thats awesome

project  Not rated yet
is it true that classical music can leave you relaxed?

facinated  Not rated yet
I just guided my son through this experiment and our thought is that even deaf musicians sense the vibrations so even without ears a plant could still ...

plants  Not rated yet
can plants grow with music

plants love music too  Not rated yet
that it really grows......

isnt he dead  Not rated yet
isnt stevie wonder dead becuase i dont see him around any more

the real answer to is it true that plants grow on music  Not rated yet
...i am a science teacher looking forward to seeing what the kids have ready for science re music and plant growth...now it can be a possibility...check ...

how  Not rated yet
see i have this science fair and i need to know does music effect plants growth. can you try to explain why this would happen in fifth grade terms. i'm ...

hmhmmmmhmhmm  Not rated yet
that sounds interesting i should try it out....

i did this project  Not rated yet
i did this project and i did three different plants. i did one with hip hop, one with pop, and one with like old music. i got hip hop in 1st followed by ...



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