The role of synthetic growth hormones in crop multiplication and improvement

Crop improvement through conventional methods to provide food security for the ever growing population has several limitations. Modern plant biotechnology has held promise over the years to improve outputs from plants. The use of growth hormones as a way of improving plant yield through micro propagation and somatic embryogenesis is the focus of this paper. Improved and disease resistant crops could easily be made available to farmers if the use of synthetic growth hormones for plantlet regeneration is vigorously pursued. In this technique, hormones like auxins, cytokinines and gibberellins could be made available at reduced cost to users for rapid multiplication of cultivated crops. Key words : Crop improvement, auxins, cytokinines, gibberellins.