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20090401 Wednesday April 01, 2009

UPDATED Will Day Of The Triffids Help Plants To Grow?

"Will Prince Charles be vindicated? Can talking to plants really help them grow? That’s what the Royal Horticultural Society is aiming to find out in an experiment at Wisley Gardens in Surrey.

For 30 days tomato plants at Wisley in Surrey will "listen" to voices reading such things as poetry, Shakespeare and The Day Of The Triffids through MP3 headphones attached to their pots. Growth will be measured before, during and after the experiment and compared to "control plants" left in silence.

According to Colin Crosbie, Garden superintendent at Wisley: “"We know that sounds of between 125hz and 250Hz can affect gene expression in plants and help them grow but this has only been tested using music.For the first time we will be able to advise people not only whether it's worth talking to their plants but exactly how it should be done.”

What SFX wants to know is if tomato plants prefer John Wyndham to Hamlet?

And thanks to those of you who fell for our cunning double bluff – this is NOT an April Fool!

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Comments:

Is it the first of April already?

Posted by Dave Probert (127.0.0.1) on April 01, 2009 at 09:53 AM BST #

Yeah right, and spaghetti grows on trees.

Posted by Dave Probert (127.0.0.1) on April 01, 2009 at 09:55 AM BST #

Surely reading The Day of the Triffids to plants is a really bad plan. We wouldn't want to give them any ideas!

I still have the feeling that somebody is pulling somebody's something (not in a rude way).

Posted by flora (127.0.0.1) on April 01, 2009 at 01:59 PM BST #

Nah, it was on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, with some poor guy from the RHS swearing blind it was no April Fool (though probably wishing the news had broken on a different day). And the story was on the BBC website yesterday.

Posted by Dave Golder (127.0.0.1) on April 01, 2009 at 02:18 PM BST #

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