Plants vs. Zzombies: Do Plants Respond Differently to Vivaldi or Metal? Acoustic Input as an Agricultural Production Factor

Global hunger remains structurally persistent, and current trajectories imply that nearly 600 million people will still face hunger in 2030 (FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS, 2023; UNITED NATIONS, 2023). Agricultural productivity growth is increasingly constrained by nonlinear heat stress (SCHLENKER and ROBERTS, 2009), groundwater depletion (FAMIGLIETTI, 2014), CO2-induced reductions in crop micronutrient concentrations (MYERS et al., 2014), and increased climate variability and extremes (INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, 2022). This proposal evaluates whether controlled acoustic stimulation could operate as a candidate marginal agricultural input. While plant mechano-biology and related agronomic studies report measurable physiological and growth responses to sound exposure—often heterogeneous across species, frequencies, and contexts (GAGLIANO et al., 2012; HUANG et al., 2024; SHARAN et al., 2023; RABERG ˚ , 2024)—economic integration, causal validation, and structural cost–benefit modeling remain missing. One can embed acoustic input within a Cobb–Douglas production framework, extend it to stochastic climate environments, derive dynamic adoption conditions under risk aversion, and design a power- randomized controlled trial (RCT) linked to structural calibration. The objective for proposed future research is a disciplined empirical test of a potentially scalable productivity margin under food-security SDG II.