In 1986, the then Prince of Great Britain, Prince Charles, said in an interview that it was important to talk to and listen to plants. It was laughed at back then, but today it has been proven in many studies that plants also like music.
They can make noises, understand them and react. Since the 1960s, a lot of research involving playing sounds near plants has been carried out around the world, but the results are only now becoming available.
Because of the noise, the plants stopped growing
A study published in 2018 claimed that when the telegraph plant (Asian leafy tree) was kept in contact with Buddhist mantras for 56 days, larger leaves began to grow in it. When listening to Western pop music or in solitude, the cards remained smaller. A 2022 research paper reported that marigolds and sedge plants exposed to street noise slow their growth.
Music speeds up seed germination
Similarly, research conducted in China shows that playing music in a greenhouse environment resulted in faster seed germination and even higher crop yields. In early 2023, researchers at Tel Aviv University reported that there are many plant species that produce noise in response to various stresses. These sounds are so quiet that people cannot hear them.
Vibrations are recorded when caterpillars chew leaves
Plants have evolved for millions of years alongside insects that pollinate or eat them. However, the question is whether plants can be sensitive to the sound waves that these insects emit. To find out the answer, botanist Heidi Appel of the University of Houston and entomologist Reginald Cockroft of the University of Missouri recorded the vibrations that certain species of caterpillars produce when chewing leaves.
The vibration can reach the other blade
They found that these vibrations are not strong enough to create sound waves in the air. However, when the blades are connected together, the vibrations can reach another blade. To prove this, researchers released caterpillars onto plants in the laboratory. The exposed leaves were found to have much higher levels of defense chemicals such as glucosinolates and anthocyanins. Therefore the caterpillars could not eat them.
Plants are able to recognize such threats and defend themselves against them. The results of his research were published in 2014.
