Many growers talk to or play music with their plants and claim that it makes them do better.
Relatively new studies indeed show that plant organisms perceive sound as a mechanical stimulus that causes cellular and metabolic changes. Thus, sound stimuli can theoretically influence the rate of germination and increase growth, thereby improving the yield of some crops, for example.
However, such communication was considered one-sided until recently. When trying to save plants from drought, predators or infection, plants not only cannot escape, but they cannot even make noise to warn of their problems.
They must rely on their biochemical reactions and environmental cues.
A new study by Israeli scientists published this week in the journal Cell suggests that it might be the other way around. Plants make some sounds when threatened, but their frequency is too high for our ears.
Tomato sounds like popcorn
Lilach Hadany, lead author of the study and an evolutionary biologist and theorist at Tel Aviv University, told CNN that she had been skeptical of the claim that plants were mute for years.
“There are so many organisms that respond to sound, so I couldn’t find a good reason for plants to be deaf and dumb,” said Hadany, who first experimentally recorded the sound of her cactus six years ago. For example, the scientist led a study in the past showing that the buzzing of bees can cause plants to produce sweeter nectar.
Since it could not be proven that the sound was made by her cactus and not by another organism near it, the researchers used sound-proof boxes in the new study. They enclosed several tomato and tobacco plants in them and listened.