Basic stuff on plant hormones and a bit about me                                                                                                

If I get around to it I will put some details in my profile so you have some idea about who is feeding you this information. In the interim suffice it to say that I'm a 3rd year science student covering the fields of Botany, Zoology and some Palaeontology.

This blog is in the field of botany and applied plant sciences in particular, however as you read it, I'm hoping you keep an open mind about the processes that are being described since some of them are similar to those found in animal biology, in your own body for instance. The fact that they operate in almost all cells of any organism always amazes me.

Plants, like animals, use hormones to regulate various processes in their "bodies". For a general idea, hormone 1 may activate a particular process and hormone 2 may stop that process or slow it down, whereas hormone 3 may act in tandem with hormone 2 to activate an entirely different process.

The concentration that a hormone is found in at any one location also can have a bearing on how it acts, such as the speed that the process proceeds at or how strong its effect is on the organism.

Possibly one of the best known examples is that of human growth hormone which is produced in the pituitary gland on the underside of your brain. Hormones called Growth Hormone Secretagogues activate the pituitary gland to produce growth hormone. When it's secreted and circulates around the body, it activates the process of human growth. In high concentrations you grow fast and the opposite applies of course, for low concentrations.

Its production and secretion is stopped when another hormone de-activates the process and you stop growing. There are cases where persons keep growing their entire life albeit at a slower rate when the production process didn't stop.

So, hormones in animals and plants act like dimmer switches; On or Off and Very bright or Very dim.

Ok that's enough of the simple stuff, you hopefully have an idea how hormones work now let’s look at the experiment next.