Crop growth regulation

A healthy root system functions to absorb water and dissolved chemicals and translocate them to the above-ground tissues. Many crop growth regulators, hormones, and other chemicals crucial to providing biotic and... 

Klug-Andersen, S., Jerusalem artichoke a vegetable crop. Growth regulation and cultivars, Acta Hort., 318, 145-152, 1992. 

The ideal plant growth regulator should leave no harmful persistent residue in a finished product or crop and the paradigm compounds are ones that have high specific activity, are target specific, and are environmentally biodegradable. 

The most acceptable growth regulators appear to be those compounds that already occur in nature (Table 1) and eUcit certain desirable responses in economic crops. Relative to the number of purely synthetic materials available, the natural products are a very small group that has not grown appreciably since the early 1950s. 

Naphthalene Acetic Acid and Naphthalene Acetamide. Naphthalene acetic acid [26445-01-2] (38) is historicaHy one of the first plant growth regulators. Reports concerning its activity in crops and plants have been a subject in much of the eady Hterature (57). Consequently, it has been used as a starting matedal for other compounds, eg, vide infra Sevin. Naphthaleneacetamide [31093-43-3] (39) has been used as a standard matedal to evaluate abscission pnor to 1953 and its effect on apple drop was reported in 1953 (58). The substance is used as an internal standard in the abscission bioassay (59). 

AC 94377. The compound l-(3-chlorophthalimide) cyclohexanecarboxamide [51971 -67-6] (Table 3) (45), also known as AC 94377, is a phthalamide that has plant growth regulating properties. It is relatively nontoxic so that its use in floricultural crops appears to be safe. It is mainly used to control stem length and stem numbers in hybrid tea roses (23). However, it has very limited use and is stiH experimental. 

R. M. Sacher, "Strategies to Discover Plant Growth Regulators for Agronomic Crops," in Chemical Manipulation of Crop Growth and Development 1982, p. 167. 

T. H. Thomas, ed. Plant Growth Regulator Potential and Practice, Bnt. Crop Protect. Conf. Publ., Croydon, U.K., 1982, p. 117. 

Quarrie, S.A. (1984). Abscisic acid and drought resistance in crop plants, British Plant Growth Regulator Group News, 1, 1-15. 

Agricultural chemicals such as herbicides, insecticides, and crop and animal growth regulators are a major chemical industry. Here a major feature of a suitable product is that it is rapidly degraded to harmless chemicals after it accomplishes its function. For example. 

Other products represent only a small share of the crop protection market with plant growth regulators being the largest of this sector and other product types including rodenticides, molluscicides, avicides and nematicides. 

This book examines the chemistry and mode of action of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and plant growth regulators. It follows crop protection strategies from early discoveries to the present day, emphasising the biochemical targets of the compounds discussed. 

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