Effect of cytokinins (benzyl adenine and kinetin) on bulbous flower crops: A review

Abstract

The flowers have been considered as the symbol of grace and elegance and a feast for our eyes. With changing lifestyles and increased urban affluence, floriculture has assumed a definite commercial status in recent times. Appreciation of the potential of commercial floriculture has resulted in the blossoming of this field into a viable agri-business option. Availability of natural resources like diverse agro-climatic conditions permits the production of a wide range of temperate and tropical flowers, almost all through the year in some part of the country or other. Among the different management practices in flower crops, plant growth regulators have a great bearing in influencing the growth and flowering attributes. Now a days these growth regulators can be easily available in the market. They play an important role in dormancy breaking, production of quality cut flowers and corms or bulbs. In bulbous flower crops benzyl adenine and kinetin helps in stimulating cell division, they regulate shoot meristem size, leaf primordia number, and leaf and shoot growth, setting blossoms, increases post-harvest life of flowers, affects tuberization by enhancing the activation of starch-synthesizing enzymes. Benzyl adenine and kinetin quite effective in improving the growth of plants and yield of flowers. It increases the number and size of the corms/bulbs and produces quality planting material and it is also effective in improving the vase life of cut flowers.