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Studies Find Positive Effects of Music on Plants

Several studies have looked at this question, specifically how music effects plant growth. In 1962, Dr. T. C. Singh, head of the Botany Department at India’s Annamalia University, experimented with the effect of musical sounds on the growth rate of plants. He found that balsam plants grew at a rate that accelerated by 20% in height and 72% in biomass when exposed to music.

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, an Indian plant physiologist and physicist, spent a lifetime researching and studying the various environmental responses of plants. He concluded that they react to the attitude with which they are nurtured. He also found that plants are sensitive to factors in the external environment, such as light, cold, heat, and noise. Bose documented his research in Response in the Living and Non-Living, published in 1902, and The Nervous Mechanism of Plants, published in 1926. In order to conduct his research, Bose created recorders capable of detecting extremely small movements, like the quivering of injured plants, and he also invented the crescograph, a tool that measures the growth of plants. From his analysis of the effects specific circumstances had on plants’ cell membranes, he hypothesised they could both feel pain and understand affection.

The Effect of Music on Seed Development

Dr. T. C. Singh also discovered that seeds that were exposed to music and later germinated produced plants that had more leaves, were of greater size, and had other improved characteristics. It practically changed the plant’s genetic chromosomes!

Canadian engineer Eugene Canby exposed wheat to J.S. Bach’s violin sonata and observed a 66% increase in yield.

The classic book The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird documents many scientific, statistically-significant studies done on the fascinating relationship between sound and music and plants. The right sounds can produce tremendous improvements in growth, and the wrong sounds can do just the opposite. Plants are more aware of their surroundings than we think, probably much more so than us!

George Smith, skeptical botanist and agricultural researcher, planted corn and soybeans in separate greenhouses under controlled conditions and began to experiment with music and plants.

In one greenhouse, he played George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” 24 hours a day, producing thicker, greener plants that weighed 40% more for corn and 24% more for soy. He went on to produce amazing corn harvests using ear-splitting continuous notes at high and low pitches.

Two researchers at the University of Ottawa did trials with high-frequency vibrations in wheat. Plants responded best to a frequency of 5000 cycles a second. They were baffled and could not explain why audible sound had nearly doubled wheat harvests.

Peter Belton, researcher for Canada’s Department of Agriculture, controlled the European corn-borer moth by broadcasting ultrasonic waves. 50% of the corn was damaged in the control plot, and only 5% in the plot with sound. The sound plot also had 60% fewer larvae and was 3” taller on average.

George Milstein found that a continuous low hum at 3000 cycles per second accelerated the growth of most of his plants and even caused some of them to bloom six full months ahead of their normal schedule. On the other hand, he was quite adamant that music for plants couldn’t possibly have an effect, as they “can’t hear.”

List of differents techniques and sounds that can influence plant life

1. Classic music influence
2. Protein and molecular music.
Protein music, special melodies to regulate biosynthesis.
Relation to quantum physics.
3. Sonic Bloom techniques developed by Dan Carlson
Bird songs.
4. Ultrasonics and infrasounds experiments.
5. Special resonance frequencies.
Electromagnetic and radio wave effects in relation to sound.
6. Emotional influences with music.
Response of plant growth and health to emotion and attention in relation to music
7. 432 hz tuned music and sound frequencies

Group of farmers in Panjab, India, use music for growing their crops. They don’t use any pesticides anymore and replace it with music. Their crops are healthy and the yields improved. You put around one loudspeaker each 50 meters or 150 feet.

In the study “Tuned in: plant roots use sound to locate water” published in Oecologia, UWA researchers found that plants can sense sound vibrations from running water moving through pipes or in the soil, to help their roots move towards the source of water. The study also revealed that plants do not like certain noises and will move away from particular sounds.

Lead researcher Dr Monica Gagliano from UWA’s Centre of Evolutionary Biology at the School of Animal Biology said water was a basic need for a plant’s survival, and the study showed that sound plays a significant role in helping plants cater to this need.

https://dengarden.com/gardening/the-effect-of-music-on-plant-growth

https://www.smilinggardener.com/plants/music-and-plants/

http://musique-pour-soigner-les-plantes.weebly.com/music-and-plants.html

https://phys.org/news/2017-04-reveals-sources.html

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Plants talk

It is speculated that plants can understand and interpret sounds, at wavelengths beyond our capacities. Specific sounds have proven to speed the growth of certain plants – binaural sounds (which are essentially two separate frequencies playing from opposing sides), sounds found in their natural environments, and even white noise – have been shown to positively affect the plant.

 

Sternheimer composes musical note sequences which help plants grow and has applied for an international patent covering the concept. The sound sequences are not random but are carefully constructed melodies. Each note is chosen to correspond to an amino acid in a protein with the full tune corresponding to the entire protein. What this means is that the sounds sequenced in just the right order results in a tune which is unique and harmonizes with the internal structure of a specific plant type. Each plant type has a different sequence of notes to stimulate its growth.

 

 

A research on impatiens and beans was conducted in order to show the effect of sound on plant growth, as well as to see any correlations to the size of the plant. It was found that when the wavelength of the sound waves coincided with the dimensions of the leaf, the effect was the greatest. Essentially, air particles vibrate and move along the surface of the leaf, making a scrubbing action, removing water particles from the surface of the leaf. This allowed the plant to breathe better. Pure tones as well as random noise were used, random noise being detrimental to the growth of the beans.

 

It’s now well established that when bugs chew leaves, plants respond by releasing volatile organic compounds into the air. By Karban’s last count, 40 out of 48 studies of plant communication confirm that other plants detect these airborne signals and ramp up their production of chemical weapons or other defense mechanisms in response.

 

Just a few months ago, the plant signaling pioneer Ted Farmer of the University of Lausanne discovered an almost entirely unrecognized way that plants transmit information — with electrical pulses and a system of voltage-based signaling that is eerily reminiscent of the animal nervous system.

 

Plants can communicate with insects as well, sending airborne messages that act as distress signals to predatory insects that kill herbivores.

 

The idea that plants communicate with each other is normally based in science-fiction or fantasy, but new research out of The University of Western Australia reveals that this actually may be the case. UWA Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr. Monica Gagliano has discovered that our green friends not only react to sounds, but they can also communicate with each other via “clicking noises.”

 

Gardeners have long believed that what music they play affects the growth of their plants, but Dr. Gagliano’s research, done with colleagues Professor Daniel Robert at the University of Bristol (UK) and Professor Stefano Mancuso at the University of Florence (Italy), shows that the roots of young plants emit and react to particular sounds.

 

While mushrooms might be the most familiar part of a fungus, most of their bodies are made up of a mass of thin threads, known as a mycelium. We now know that these threads act as a kind of underground internet, linking the roots of different plants. That tree in your garden is probably hooked up to a bush several metres away, thanks to mycelia.

 

Around 90% of land plants are in mutually-beneficial relationships with fungi. The 19th-century German biologist Albert Bernard Frank coined the word “mycorrhiza” to describe these partnerships, in which the fungus colonises the roots of the plant.

 

A new study conducted by Dr. David Johnson at the University of Aberdeen found that plants actually communicate with one another through the soil. The study shows that when vegetables are infected with certain diseases, they alert other nearby plants to activate genes to ward off the disease when it heads their way. The key to this communication is a soil fungus that acts as a messenger.

 

When you inhale the sweet smell of freshly mown grass or cut flowers, what you’re actually smelling is the plant’s distress call. It’s the plant’s way of crying out for help.

 

The invasive knapweed plant—native to Eastern Europe but wrecking havoc on U.S. grasslands—has roots that release certain chemicals to help the plant take in nutrients from the soil. Those same chemicals also kill off native grasses. Thus, the knapweed ends up taking over large territories and killing off its competitors, much like some animals do. Some plants, however, have formed a defense. Lupin roots secrete oxalic acid, which forms a protective barrier against the toxic chemicals given off by knapweed. Lupin can even protect other plants in its vicinity from falling prey to the invasive species.

 

Plants go out of their way to attract more than just insects. A carnivorous pitcher plant native to Borneo has evolved to hijack bat communication systems, turning the bats’ echolocation to its advantage. According to a new study in Current Biology, Nepenthes hemsleyan has a concave structure that is specially suited to reflect bat echolocation, helping the bats find the plant.

 

BMC Ecology researchers report a new type of mechanism that some plants use to communicate. The team planted common chili pepper seeds (Capsicum annuum) near a basil plant, with barriers that prevented the basil from deploying its usual growth-promoting tricks. Despite the separation, chili seeds germinated faster when basil was a neighbor, suggesting that a message was getting through. Because light, touch, and chemical “smell” were ruled out, the team proposes that the finding points to a new type of communication between plants, possibly involving nanoscale sound waves, traveling through the dirt to bring encouraging “words” to the growing seeds.

 

https://www.wired.com/2013/12/secret-language-of-plants/

https://inhabitat.com/plants-can-talk-to-each-other-by-clicking-their-roots/

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet

https://inhabitat.com/plants-talk-to-each-other-through-a-messenger-in-the-soil/

http://mentalfloss.com/article/66302/5-ways-plants-communicate

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/plants-talk-to-each-other-nanoscale-sound-waves-grow_n_3229021

 

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RMZ Eckoworld space sketches

Sketches and photos of place where Ecocentric will be exhibited:

“RMZ Ecoworld is a colossal architectural form, to create the next level of a work-leisure district in a bustling metropolis like Bangalore. A 52-acre land area with 7.5 million sq ft development of spectacular aesthetics, in a sustainable environment where natural and architectural forms are symbiotically integrated using responsible planning and precise engineering.”

(from their website)

Matthew sketches of interior:

Photos by Tirtharaj Paul (Visual communication and strategic branding). Sketches by Matthew Arnold Mata (Contemporary art practise).

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Mr. Sundeep´s EIEIO Farm

Ecocentric students and visiting artist went on 5th December to field trip visiting organic farm a little out of Bangalore on the road to Mangalore. The farm produced organic vegetables and herbs on a reasonably moderate scale, and was managed by a family of three, who continually shuttle between the city and the farm.

Group was initially given a brief about organic  farming  before taken around the farm. The owner spoke about organic  farming, and helped the group to formulate some ideas that could be invested in the final installation. Owner,  Mr. Sudeep took the group trough the Groundnuts, Avrekai, Toor Dal, Coconut, tomato, passion fruit, papaya, mango, and avocado.

There was also a small herb garden and a single bee hive for cross pollination which housed the indigenous species Apis Cerana Indica. This species, having adapted to the Indian subcontinent has developed ways to avoid being eaten by Bee Eaters by flying in a random motion, which confuses the bird and reduces its chances of catching the bee. The mistake that people make by breeding the Italian bees (Apis Mellifera) in India is that these bees only know how to fly in straight lines, and therefore are an easy catch for birds.

In the afternoon group participated in a farming activity, where Avrekai and Groundnut seeds were planted.

These seeds have been prepared with a special bacterial powder beforehand, to ensure growth. Also, harvesting Toor dal was conducted.

From this experience group learned the practical process of growing plants and also the patience and investment it requires in order to grow and maintain farms.

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Visiting AOL permaculture and gaushala premises

For our second field visit, we went to the Art of Living Ashram on Kanakapura road on the 1st of December. The objective of this visit was to learn about tradition of dialog between humans and non-humans through visiting gaushala and research on using vibration and sound in human/animal communication.

Ashram itself is a self-sustainable system, using renewables, powered by solar panels, with a permacultural farm, using compost/bio waste to produce bio gas , recycling plastic to produce fuel, producing most of the food they need on their organic and permacultural farm. In all aspects of their work they use holistic approach, also with plants and animals, and through the visit of the permacultural farm in ashram, we really got a chance to experience what eco-centric means.

Most important part of our visit was spent in the Gaushala and permacultural farm. The Gaushala at the Art of Living houses 40 different varieties of indigenous cattle. The cows too have benefited from the practices at the Ashram. Special Bhajans (separate ones for the morning and evening) are played to the cows on speakers, and the cows have scientifically been proven to be healthier and produce better milk as a consequence of daily exposures to thse vibrations. They particularly like to listen to the flute, as the manager Chandu Bhaiyya informed us. He also unveiled in detail the benefits of owning a cow, and how the cow has the unique insight of a mother (as when a cow licks your hand, she is able to tell what obstructs your happiness, and provides the kind of milk that will get rid of such impediments). We even had a session where we got to interact with the cows, pet them, and speak to them, which was quite special for most of us.

We also made a brief visit to a renewable energy converter, which turned a certain variety of plastic into energy that was used to run the kitchen stoves.

Our final stop was the permaculturural farm, where we were told about how it is done and how it works. We learned that permaculture is a self-sustaining agricultural model wherein different plants are grown in tandem, which ultimately benefits the yield of the entire crop. Permaculture farms do not typically look like the manicured, neatly ploughed land we are so used to seeing, but more like a thick growth of vegetation within which edible crops are grown. In the Ashram, there was even a small apiary, which helped to sustain the farm all by itself, as the bees help to pollinate and germinate new plants. The farm had a natural pond as well, which kept the moisture in the area, and helped bring in birds and other animals such as frogs and lizards that in turn ate the pests from the plants, thereby mitigating the need for pesticides. We were also introduced to swales, which are underground ridges constructed to stop water flow when the rainy season comes. This prevents the water from gushing into the farm and washing away/drowning the plants and stagnating. The plants we saw in the farm were pumpkin, tomato, passion fruit, aloe vera, bottlegourd, amla, and papaya, to name a few.

We ended our trip with a tasting of some of the fruits from the permacultural farm.