There are things that work but this sounds like bullshit.
Things that work: bear in mind that both of these studies need to be replicated but evidence seems solid. 1. Plants compete. However, plants related to each other compete much less. In fact, they tend to move towards a co-operative equilibrium. They know they are related by communicating throught the rhizosphere; much work needs to be done on this. Vineyard research, however, speaks volumes. When cuttings are used to create a vinyard and the plants are all related the yields are fantastic (increases of 25% are typical i believe). Having said that, the plants might need to have roots in contact with each other for the underlying mechanism to work: think slabs for hydro or a big 4x8 soilbed for soil.
2. Plants have better disease resistance and yeild better when played classical music: never read up enough on this one. One guy they studied in France had been blasting classical to his grapes for years based on the observations of what happened when he did this. Yeilds and disease resistance increased. No voodoo here: sound units dcan be quantiffied mathematically; again, the final word is not in.
Summary, if i waited for the final results and lost 25% yield i'd kick my own ass. LOL. I have a feeling a lot of growers are benefitting from 1. allready through the use of moms/clones. Thought for the day: pump up the volume! think bach not bachman turner overdrive (hated those guys anyways: the guess who without "guess who")