“Plants have neither ears nor brains, so they cannot perceive music the way we do…”
Photo: Michelle Cornelius/Alamy
Do you play music to your plants? As a botanist obsessed with collecting houseplants, I get asked this question all the time. The New Age idea first entered popular culture back in the 1960s with psychedelic “plant music.” album which are being popularized again on the Internet. But what has the latest research into this evergreen question shown?
First, the obvious: plants don't have ears or brains, so they can't perceive music the way we do. However, thanks to a number of recent researchWe now know that they can not only detect vibrations in their environment, but can actually change their behavior based on the information they receive. In one study, mouse ear cress exposed to the sound of caterpillars chewing produced higher levels of bitter toxins that they use as a defense. Remarkably, these plants even seemed to be able to distinguish the vibrations of leaf eaters from the vibrations of the wind or the mating calls of insects, even when they were of the same frequency, activating defenses only when faced with a threat.
Plants also respond to sounds of opportunity. Some flowers, such as tomatoes, blueberries and kiwis, only release pollen when they vibrate to the buzzing sounds of specific species of pollinating bees, ignoring the sounds of other bees. This can also happen quite quickly. It has been proven that within just 3 minutes of playing the sound of a bee flying, the nectar in evening primrose flowers becomes richer in sweet reward. Researchers even reported that pea plants are able to direct the growth of their roots towards the sound of flowing water.
However, as anyone who has heard a seven-year-old with a voice recorder knows, there is a big difference between noise and “music,” and experiments designed to test the latter's effects on plant growth have shown more mixed results. Recent study found that certain music tracks were associated with significant improvements in lettuce growth, but had no effect on alfalfa.
Regarding noise, another study found that sage and marigold exposed to 16 hours of continuous traffic noise each day showed significantly slower growth. Could this background noise be preventing them from picking up important sound signals? Right now we're just not sure.
Moral of the story? Thanks to recent research, we know that plants not only do not pay attention to sound, but can also be seriously harmed by it. But because much of this is still a mystery, we don't know enough to accurately predict which sounds, at what frequency, volume, or even duration, will produce the desired results. So before you feel the need to blast Katy Perry on your plants 24 hours a day, remember that they won't necessarily thank you for it, and neither will your neighbors.
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James Wong botanist and science writer with a special interest in food crops, conservation and the environment. Trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London, he shares his tiny apartment with more than 500 houseplants. You can follow him on X and Instagram @botanygeek.
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