Buddhist music playing in the fields is good for rice growth. And since this is the claim of farmers in a village in East China's Fujian Province, we should probably believe it.

The crop of Liangshan village went up by 15% after residents installed 500 lotus-shaped speakers in the rice paddies to flood the crops in a wave of mantras. Apparently the musical rice fields also yielded larger grains, while the silent paddies with no music suffered from pests.

There's no scientific consensus on the effect music has on plants, but researchers at the China Agricultural University have backed the experiment, saying certain sound waves - such as those found in the rhythmic chanting of mantras - can stimulate the pores on a plant's leaves to help absorb more sunlight. "Only positive music aids growth, while rock music would probably harm it," a local agriculture officer says. But other experts disagree: last year, Chris Beardshaw, one of Britain's leading gardeners, announced that playing a constant diet of heavy metal helps flowers to bloom. He said an experiment he conducted showed that a continuous playlist of Black Sabbath songs worked wonders on his greenhouse.