We already talked a little bit about the process of photosynthesis in which plants convert light energy into chemical energy that can be used to fuel its activities.

But what about this idea that when plants are praised and spoken to positively, they thrive and grow?

MythBusters once conducted an experiment in which they got hold of 60 pea plants and divided them into three greenhouse groups on a rooftop.

The first group of plants was exposed to a soundtrack that featured loving praise. The second group was played cruel insults. The final group was not given a soundtrack. The hosts were also shown verbally praising and hurling insults at the plants.

They conducted the test over the course of 60 days, and what they found was rather interesting. They discovered that the silent greenhouse performed the poorest of all, with lower biomass and smaller pea pods compared to the other greenhouses.

Interestingly, they found no major difference between the greenhouses that were exposed to the two soundtracks. Whether it was loving praise or cruel insults, the soundtrack appeared to have a positive effect on the first two groups of plants exposed to sound.

This is somewhat of a narrow study in the sense that they only experimented with one type of plant and only over the course of 60 days.