A precision agriculture start-up has created specially designed sound patterns to “program” plant growth, which it claims lead to larger harvests and altered traits without any genetic engineering or chemicals. If supported by further research, the work could expand scientists’ understanding of how plants perceive their environment and offer new ways to influence crop development.
Plants can’t hear in the same way animals can, but mounting evidence suggests they can perceive and respond to vibrations in their environment. In , researchers found that the sound of a caterpillar chewing on a leaf caused plants to produce anti-herbivore defence chemicals.
California-based start-up Haivya is aiming to stimulate plant growth using its patent-pending “Bioacoustic Cultivation and Communication Protocol” (BCCP), which exposes plants to precisely designed acoustic signals. “It’s not music, and it’s not bursts of sound,” says , Haivya’s founder. “It’s layered sounds and frequencies” that can be played through any speaker, at a volume under 80 decibels, she says. For context, 80 decibels is as a police car siren or a noisy restaurant.
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In a paper posted online last week, Haivya reports the results of trials in seven species, including bell peppers, soybeans and cannabis. Its research found markedly different results in genetically uniform plants exposed to two different BCCP protocols. One produced 42 per cent greater yield, while another produced 59 per cent greater yield, a 14 per cent faster growth cycle and reduced water consumption compared with controls. A third-party trial in cannabis plants found that using BCCP yielded a 90 per cent increase in sellable biomass and used 34 per cent less water.
BCCP starts at germination and continues throughout a plant’s life cycle, with the sounds changing as the plant grows. “I honed in on what frequencies are needed to achieve the desired outcomes at each phase,” says Ott-Dahl. In the seedling stage, for example, the priority is root expansion, whereas during the vegetative phase, the focus is on getting more bud sites.
Ott-Dahl says the change in sound patterns between stages of growth is what differentiates BCCP from prior plant bioacoustic experiments. “The protocol is designed around a specific goal, whether that’s yield, structure or a particular biochemical result, not just exposure to sound generally,” she says.
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says it is well established that plants respond to sound. However, scientists “don’t know precisely what is sensing that vibration and turning it into a biochemical signal in the plant”, he says.
In human hearing, vibrations from sound bend tiny hair cells in the inner ear, causing calcium ions to enter the cells and release chemical signals to nearby nerves. Plants could detect sound in a similar way, says Ott-Dahl, using ion channels that respond to physical vibrations by letting calcium or potassium ions in and out of cells.
Haivya’s paper is yet to be peer-reviewed, and further research is needed to validate its results. Beyond that, we need to establish how it works, says Gilroy. “There are a lot of things that might be going on. It could even be that the acoustic signal is not directly affecting the plant; it’s affecting the soil.”
If BCCP holds up, the implications for agriculture and our understanding of plant biology could be far-reaching. “Changing yield or growth even by 5 to 10 per cent is a big agricultural impact,” says Gilroy. “If it all pans out, that is super exciting.”
ResearchGate
