When renowned soprano Antoinette Halloran and her partner, fellow opera singer James Egglestone, rehearse in their backyard studio in Melbourne, it appears it’s not just the neighbours who are listening. The hours of practice have produced an unexpected bonus – thriving vegetables. It seems Antoinette has unknowingly tapped into an exciting new field of plant growth stimuli.

Antoinette reports that each season she has picked “freak crops” of vegetables, ranging from red cabbages to tomatoes and zucchinis.

Anecdotal evidence of unexplained bounty such as this corresponds exactly with international research that shows music has a positive effect on stimulating plant growth.

Dr Monica Gagliano, a research fellow at the University of Western Australia, believes the relationship between sound and plants is an exciting new field.

“It’s time we started to see plants as dynamic living beings that interact with the environment in complex ways,” she says.

“Recent research has shown that some plant genes are regulated by sound. The research showed that if specific sounds were able to regulate or turn genes on and off, this could have enormous benefit for crop production in future,” she says.

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2004 published an article...