Efforts of Dan Carlson, Blaine, Minnesota, to find ways to increase food production to help alleviate world hunger were reported in an article in the NFC spring-summer newsletter. Urged by the starvation he had seen while he was serving with the U.S. Army in Korea, Carlson enrolled at the University of Minnesota on his return to study plant breeding. In the process he experimented with and developed a method of exposing plants to high-frequency sound prior to spraying them with a combination of plant hormones, chelated amino acids, and trace minerals that is producing results beyond all expectations.

Carlson said he bought a 4-1/2 inch purple passion houseplant for 88 cents, which he grew to a length of 1,400 feet in 2-1/2 years. The normal length is about 18 inches. At one time he took 400 cuttings from this plant and sold them at a flea market. He put his phone number on each little pot and told purchasers to call him if the plant died and he would gladly replace it. Within six to seven months he received nearly a hundred calls – not because the plant died but because they were often over a hundred feet long!

Dorothy Retallack, working toward a degree at Temple Buell College, Denver, Colorado, in1968, was encouraged to combine her interest as a music major with requirements of a course in biology by her professor, Francis Broman. Her experiments demonstrated that plants do indeed respond to sounds.* Her plants exposed to the Eastern string music of Ravi Shankar thrived best, followed closely by those "listening" to Bach, while those exposed to acid rock (all types of music were played at the same decibel levels) finished a poor third. Others, too, have demonstrated that plants could be stimulated by plant hormones or by music, but it has been Carlson’s idea to combine sound and growth stimulants, which has produced such phenomenal results.

Carlson has gathered data for such crops as tomatoes, edible yellow beans, potatoes, artichokes, etc. A 15-foot tomato plant produced 836 tomatoes; 50 acres of yellow beans produced 2,200 pounds of beans after only one spray, as compared with the control plot with 1,400 pounds; potato yields doubled and roses on rosebushes increased tenfold. Last year at his research farm at Kealakekua, Hawaii, orange, grapefruit, lemon, macadamia nut, and avocado trees which were over 60 years old, neglected and had not been pruned or fertilized, bore so heavily after the sound and spray treatment that "we didn’t know what to do with all the produce." This year he is even more excited because he has found that the regular treatment of the trees appears to have turned them into "everbearing" trees. He has clusters of 20-25 avocados instead of the normal one or two, and has flowers blooming at the same time that the fruit was in various stages of development.

When he uses sound and plant nutrients and soaks seeds before planting, Carlson found that they become 40% larger than normal. In projects in Arizona and California, jojoba seeds expanded so much they could not be planted with a corn planter as usual, but had to be put in the ground with a peanut planter. Carlson has even found that when the sprouts of treated corn seeds are broken off, instead of perishing, the seeds send up 4-5 stalks. He wants to do considerable more experimentation in this area to determine how best to bring out their fullest genetic potential.

For houseplants and backyard gardens, Carlson has developed an oscillating bird-like sound superimposed on East Indian or classical music on cassette tapes. For commercial use he has an oscillating sound unit which is solar- or battery-powered and attaches to the tractor as it goes through the fields. He recommends using the sound at least 15 minutes before the spray, but says they can be used simultaneously. Tests have shown that the absorption rate of the nutrients (in as fine a mist as possible) is much greater after treatment with sound. Three sprays, fourteen days apart, seem to maximize the effectiveness on most plants, although such hard plants as the jojoba and trees require more.

Jerry Zimmerman, Big Lake, Minnesota, reported getting 22,000 pounds of potatoes, with less cracks and better color, per acre of sprayed fields as compared with 19,900 from the untreated. Figured at $8.00 per hundred pounds, the increased yield brought over $160 more per acre, while the cost per acre for the spraying was only $50, so he made at least $110 per acre.

Tom Knable, Osseo, Minnesota, planted the same kind of sweet corn in 1983 and 1984. In 1983, the crop was not treated and the second ear on the stalks rarely developed. In 1984, the treated corn consistently matured the second ear, thus doubling production. Customers told him it was the best corn they had ever tasted, so he was embarrassed to sell his "control" crop.

Dave Sarge, Maple Plain, Minnesota, had 10 acres of pumpkins severely damaged by hail. Three sprayings helped the vines recover and they yielded 2 to 3 large pumpkins per plant. The spray also produced "200,000 of the nicest, tightest, largest cauliflower heads he has ever seen." Larger broccoli, cabbage, beans, and bell peppers, and three times as many soybeans per plant as the controls. Dan Bower, River Falls, Wisconsin, found up to 300 beans on a single treated soybean plant. Harold Aungst, Pennsylvania, got three cuttings of alfalfa with a protein content of 29% as compared with 16% for the untreated.

We were so intrigued when we heard about Carlson’s experiments that we used both the cassette of taped sounds and the spray on parts of our garden this year. Although we did not have time for the recordkeeping and measurements we would have liked, we did take photos of treated and untreated sections of the strawberry rows and found about twice as many blossoms on the treated area. The berries, none of which could ‘escape’ the music, all had more and large fruit than we could have ever picked during the first two weeks of any berry season, but for some reason – perhaps the heavy rains – the oversupply of blossoms did not all yield large berries at the end.

Our peas were about twice the usual height and bore many more pods; the carrots are the best we have ever had, and the tomatoes and melons have produced more and have shown no signs of blight.

We assumed, partly because of previous experience and partly due to folklore, that if potato vines grew too large, there would be fewer potatoes produced. How surprised we were when we dug our potatoes early in September! The hills had six to ten potatoes, some often weighting more than a pound each. We should add that the potato patch adjoined the strawberry rows we sprayed and were exposed to the music, but they were not sprayed. We are making no absolute claims, but are merely reporting that we have never had larger or better yields of potatoes and wonder if the music played a role. In earlier experiments, Carlson has reported, untreated Jerusalem artichokes yielded an average of six pounds per plant; eleven pounds when exposed to the music, and sixteen pounds when exposed to music and treated with the hormone spray.

Invitations to Speak

Carlson was invited to speak about his experiments at Ag Progress Days at Pennsylvania State University this year. A farmer whose fields are just opposite the University’s Experiment Station has signed up to use Carlson’s plant treatment on his alfalfa, corn, sweet corn, and soybeans next year.

During this year’s annual conference of ACRES-USA, November 25-27, at Kansas City, Missouri, Dan Carlson and Christopher Bird, co-author of The Secret Life of Plants and scheduled to report on the success with sounds and the spray on plants. Charlie Waters, editor The Voice of Eco-Agriculture, is the sponsor of this meeting, the largest gathering of organic farmers in the country.

* Tompkins, Peter & Christopher Bird. The Secret Life of Plants, Harper & Row, New York and London (1973)

-- New Frontiers Center Newsletter, Fall, Winter 1984