Bach-choi? Researchers find plants grow leafier when played Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos

9 June 2025, 15:45 | Updated: 9 June 2025, 17:11

Ever thought about growing your own Bach-choi?

Classical music can boost vegetable growth, a new study published in the journal Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture has suggested.

Pak choi plants that were played Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos as they grew were leafier and heavier than those that were played rock music.

Researchers in Oxford studied pak choi plants under three conditions: some that were played rock music, some that were played classical music and those that were played no music at all.

The Bach also had an impact on root growth: those pak choi plants that grew to the concertos had the highest total root volume, measuring 90 cubic centimetres, the plants grown in silence reached 77 cubic centimetres and those grown alongside instrumental rock reached just 30 cubic centimetres.

Although there is no definitive answer to why this happens, researchers suggest it could be related to a combination of sound frequencies, music tempo and the instruments used in the experiment, and the impact all these have on stimulating or inhibiting plant growth.

Read more: Does classical music really help plants grow?

Bach's Prelude in C for guitar - Raphaël Feuillâtre

Charles Spence, a co-author and professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, said: “Playing music to plants is not as crazy as it may sound at first. Classical music may have an effect on plant growth because plants are attuned to vibrations, such as the vibrations of running water in soil, and they react to them biologically.

“Meanwhile the different frequencies in rock music may fall outside the sonic range which boosts plant growth.”

Experts did insist, however, that considerably more research is required before those with green fingers start playing ‘Greensleeves’ on their allotments.

Read more: King Charles plays ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ on a carrot at Windsor Castle

This is not the first time this kind of experiment has been conducted. A 2015 study explored the impact of classical music on tomato plants, and found that vibrations from music helped plants to grow ‘two and a half times better’ than the ones that had no music playing.

Similarly, in 2017, a study investigating the impact of different musical genres on wheat seeds found that seeds exposed to classical music grew by an average of 3.33cm a week, while those exposed to Led Zeppelin and other rock or acid rock grew by only 1.33cm a week.