Step Up With Plants! Plants response to music and they move.

 

Project name - Step Up With Plants

Plant name - Tulasi (Ocimum tenuiflorum)

 

Aim: To study effects of sounds on Plant Tulasi (Ocimum tenuiflorum)

 

Objectives: Reaction of plant towards today’s ‘Rock music’ and frequency of ‘Om’ and comparing both with a normal growing plant. Plants are known to respond to stimuli and music can be said as one. In this project, the influence of different frequencies or sounds including those of music on the growth pattern of plants and curvature of plant will be observed. It could be commented that music promoted the growth and development of the plants, including germination whereas noise hindered it. Possibly, specific audible frequencies and also musical frequencies facilitate better physiological processes like absorption of  nutrients, photosynthesis,  protein  synthesis, etc. For the plant and this is observable in terms of increased height, higher number of leaves and overall more developed, health and movement towards or away from the source of sound.

 

Introduction: We know that plants are fixed at a place with their roots in the ground and so they can’t move from one place to another. They don’t show locomotion in general, but the movement of the individual parts or organs of a plant like shoot, root, leaves etc. is possible when they are subjected to some stimuli like light, the force of gravity, chemical substances, water and touch etc. These movements are possible under the influence of stimulus because of plant hormones. In this article we will discuss about one type of plant movement i.e. nastic movement which is a growth independent movement.

The movements of higher plants are chiefly in the form of bending, twisting, elongation of certain plant parts or organs.

Spontaneous Movement: There are other plant movements which take place spontaneously, without any external stimuli. These movements are described spontaneous or autonomic movements.

Induced Movement: Some plants movements are caused in response to certain stimuli and they are said to be induced or plant movement which take place spontaneously, without any irritability and sensitivity of protoplasm.

Some scientists are of the opinion that plants are devoid of a nervous system and therefore are unable to understand music or respond to music. However, there are a few studies which suggest that music may have distinct effect on plants. Sir ‘Jagdish Chandra Bose’ was one of the pioneers to study the behavior of plants in response to various stimuli. Music is a harmonious frequencies and vibrations has many different forms, qualities, and pitches. It is believed that loud and unharmonious sounds can ruin the mood and health of a plant and plant do response in negative way by growing away from the sound source. Soft rhythmic music on the other hand is better for their size and influence their overall health and plants response positively by growing towards sound source.

It is said that everything in the universe is pulsating and vibrating and nothing is standing still. People enjoy different types of music and animals also respond to it too. The purpose of this research is to observe, whether exposure to ‘Om’ sound and today’s ‘Rock Music’ will affect plant movement and growth.

The sound ‘Om’ when chanted vibrates at the frequency of 136.10Hz which is the same vibration frequency found throughout everything in the nature. Interestingly it is also the frequency of the 32^nd octave.

Time period (T) of one rotation of earth round the sum = 365.256 days into 24hrs/day into 60min/hr into 60sec/min = 31558118.4sec.

So the frequency (f) of the earth year = 1/T

= 3.168757 into 10^-8Hz.

If we multiply this with 32^nd octave that is with 4294967296= (2^32). We get = 136.1Hz = frequency of the sound ‘OM’.

The universe’s vibration during the big bang was just like vibration of ‘Om’, also People use it to calm our mind during meditation.

As octave of earth is equal to frequency of plant may positively or negatively react or move towards or away from the sound of om (32^nd octave of earth) respectively.

Rock Music was chosen as we all hear it either to get motivated, to energize and usually on loud speakers and mostly plants around are exposed to the music people listen to.

Same as for Rock Music which contains different sounds of instruments like guitar, piano, violin, etc can effect positively or negatively on the plant.   

 

Reviewed Literature:

Movements in Plants prepared by Dr. Jyoti Pandey, Assistant Professor, Botany, A.N. College, Patna, Patliputra University.

MOVEMENT OF CURVATURE

In these cases, plants are fixed, thus they fail to move from one place to another and somehow, movement is noticed in the form of bend or curvature on any part of the plant. By means of curvatures these organs may change their positions according to their requirement in order to carry on their functions more effectively.

Movement of curvature can be classified into-

I) MECHANICAL II) VITAL MOVEMENTS

I) MECHANICAL OR HYGROSCOPIC MOVEMENTS: These movements occur in 

non-living parts of plants and depend upon the presence or absence of water. These are 

mechanical movements, which have nothing to do with protoplasm.

It is of two types.

i. Xerochasy : This movement occurs due to the loss of water. Example: When water is lost from the annulus of the sporangia of fern, it burst from stomium and spores are liberated out. The explosive movements or catapult actions of certain fruits like Lupinus  perennis and Iris versicolor take place when certain fruit tissue dries up. Ruellia fruit ruptures after absorbing moisture from outside.

ii. Hydrochasy: This movement occurs due to the absorption of water. Example: Peristomial teeth of moss protrude out when the capsule is dry and curve when capsule is wet. Elaters of the Equisetum coil and uncoil in the presence and absence of water.

II VITAL MOVEMENTS: Irritibility of protoplasm brings these movements

 

Material And Methods: Om Mantra Chanting

Rock Music

3 plants named ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’  of the same type Tulasi (Ocimum tenuiflorum), with same health and age.

An environment ideal to the type of plant.

Camera

Time Lapse

 

This picture was taken on day 1.

Experimental Procedure:

Place all plants- A, B, C in the same type of environment in terms of sunlight, temperature, water and soil.

Expose one of the plant named ‘C’ to two to three hours of OM mantra per day.

Expose another plant named ‘B’ to two to three of Rock music per day.

The other one plant named ‘A’ is control plants: it will be exposed to no music.

Music/sound was given from one direction of the plant to know the curvature of plants towards the plant source. 

Take pictures of each plant before the experiment. A picture can also be taken of all plants lined up next to each other.

Take the same pictures after 1 day, 12^th day, 40^th day.

 

Observations:

 

Day 1

Day 12

Day 40

 

Plants	Curvature towards/away music source.	Curvature towards/away music source.	Curvature towards/away music source.
	Day 12	Day 30	Day 40
A	90 degree (no music source)	90 degree (no music source)	90 degree (no music source)
B	90 degree	90 degree	88 degree (away from music source)
C	85 degree (towards music source)	80 degree (towards music source)	78 degree (towards music source)

 

Growth of plant from day1 to day40:

Plant A - 4.5inch to 6.1inch

Plant B - 4.4inch to 5.5inch

Plant C – 4.5inch to 1.1ft

 

Result and discussions: Expression of some genes encoding mechanosensitive ion channels, which may recognize mechanical signals, was reported to differ between sound-exposed.

This supports that sound vibrations provide a special stimulus to plants just like mechanical signals. Thus sound affects the cell level rather than the specific structure of the organism.

Although sound is not a visible or chemical stimulus, plants exposed to sound (a physical force) by affecting at cellular level plants can show very slight movements.

These results imply that sound vibrations provide a stimulus to plants.

(Reference from google scholar)

 

Conclusion: It is concluded that when the frequency of nature or the sound of universe OM with frequency of 136.10 Hz when exposed to the plant Tulasi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) Plant named ‘C’ responses to Om chanting positively and bending of stem towards the source of music was seen.

Whereas when the plant Tulasi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) Plant named ‘B’ was exposed to Rock music very less but negative response was seen in plant which bend away from the music source.

 

Reference:  

1.Google Scholar

2.Youtube.com