So I know a guy who grows cannabis in Colorado. The plant’s name is George Bush Kush, and he is a Slightly Stoopid enthusiast. I found it so interesting my friend played music for his plant, as he said Kush enjoys listening to jam bands such as Slightly Stoopid, String Cheese Incident, and others. Apparently, the “good vibrations” encourage it to grow.
I want to know is this really a thing? Can music and “good vibes” impact plant growth? According to the article How Music Can Help Plants Grow, they really do. Dorothy Retallack studied the correlation in the 1970s. She compared three cannabis plants; one playing no music, one playing some music, and the other playing constant music. The study found that the plant listening to some music grew at a faster rate, and as they grow the plants tend to lean towards the speakers.
Effect of Music on Plant Growth discusses experiments in Canada and India asking the same questions. The article explains “in the case of spring wheat treated to low frequency-music in a low temperature, the process of germination was three times faster than the normal rate”. Honestly I had to look up what “germination” meant before I realized the study proved what I wanted to hear. According to Dictionary Online, germination means the process by which a plant grows and develops.
I looked into a few other sources searching for truth in my friend’s hypothesis, but I couldn’t find many consistent and credible ones. Some articles said music does help, some said it doesn’t, and some said they still don’t know.
The article Why Does Music Affect Plant Growth says it is not known whether or not music helps, but it does introduce an interesting. Maybe the music affects the plant’s care takers putting them in a better mood, and therefore they take better care of their plants.
If I were to study this further I would experiment on multiple plants and control where they came from and the amount of attention they each receive. The only difference in the plant’s lives would be the amount of music they each listen to and the genre of music.
I have never heard of this possibility, and like many other people I’m sure, this idea seems pretty funny. Plants aren’t conscious, they can’t hear music, but maybe other aspects of music benefit them. Now what these aspects would be, I have no idea. I agree with your idea of an experiment. I think there are too many factors that could influence the experiment, so everything would need to be precise. Maybe some day someone will get to the bottom of this interesting theory!