Evening folks,

So, I installed my first tunnel. It's a nice catterpillar of 100 feet by 16 feet. 5 beds in it.

Now I thought it would be nice to have a little system which plays music 24-7.

So I need:
- waterproof speaker, which are loud enough yet easy on energy consumption
- cheap mp3, I'll ziplock bag it
- energy source. Preferably a small solar panel to have the system running all the time?

I'm wondering, does anyone have experience with this type of system? I intend to try different types of music...

Check on the net for Boating Supply Companies, they will have speakers, players, and even small PV units.
Best part of using this type of company for your equipment is that since they are designed for boats, they will be water proof instead of water resistant.

I applaud you wanting to try different music types but a lot of the research has been done already along these lines.
Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Grunge, etc., have all be shown to be very detrimental to plant growth and health.

Jazz is dependent on which form is being played, soft flowing styles do best.

Classical, as long as you leave out things along the lines of the 1812 overture, plants respond very favorably.

Redhawk

Classical, as long as you leave out things along the lines of the 1812 overture, plants respond very favorably.

I would certainly try out some Strauss waltzes.

I don't know how much power you will be consuming, but I know people with a car battery powered electric fence.  They keep the battery charged all season (solstice to solstice) with one of these: http://www.kencove.com/fence/Solar+Panels_detail_MSP10P.php

I'd be willing to bet that playing "nature sounds" would be even better than playing soothing classical music.  Mimicking the sound of a forest or meadow might be what plants are "used to" and so would probably encourage them to be more healthy.  Bird noises, insect noises, buzzing bee sounds, light wind...  the list goes on.  Assuming that plants perform better under normal wild conditions it makes sense that those natural sounds would be beneficial to whatever you're trying to grow.     I'd be interested in seeing any dat you collect on this experiment.  Good luck

I have experimented with Bee and Wasps sounds as a way to deter horn worms and other larvae, and it does seem to work fairly well.
When the bee and wasp wing beating is played near them they either drop from the plant or they hang back, playing dead, both making it easier to grab them up and squish them.

There are many studies going on right now (mostly in Europe) on which types of sounds will act this way on pest insects.
I find it rather exciting to be able to fight off pest insects with sounds.

These new studies are aligning towards reduction in need for pesticides rather than growth rate effects, which is a huge step in the right direction.
To be able to fight off insect damages with out resorting to poisons is a very good thing in my opinion.

I am not aware of any new studies being carried out that are looking at plant growth rates. Those were done mostly back in the 1960's thru the 1980's.

Redhawk.

Interesting.. Yeah I wanted to focus on Indian devotional music/classical.

I'll also implement an electroculture set up, which is the same idea of pest control through making a plant strong and vigorous.
Been following the work of Yannick Van D http://www.electroculturevandoorne.com/
Most resources are in french. It was WIDELY used before WWI, but then metal resources went for bullets to mow each other down. And post wwii, the agro-chem took over, sending electroculture to oblivion. The word isn't even in dictionaries anymore.
Oh yeah, I'm a weird french canadian mix, so I can dig into this info.... Trying to gather as much info as possible. When winter hits I'll have more time to share results.
Frankly, looking at the actual results, I'm amazed that there's not more noise about it!!!

Another really interesting line of research going on related to music/sound is how some frequencies can be used to trigger an increase in the production of a specific protein of the plant dna. No fuck-around like GMO. Laser-like precision to obtain desired results in a clean, effective manner.