The point of the experiment has been foiled by the choice to hand water one group and use sprinklers on the other. Whether talking to the plant or not did anything can't be proven because of this. If the student were to try to publish this experiment and the outcomes. Critics would be able to use the unequal treatment in water supply as a reason to discredit his/her experiment and dismiss the claims. When performing an experiment like this it is very important to treat each side as equal as possible.
