Plant growth regulation

#This application is a 371 filing of International Application No. PCT/EP2013/052225, filed Feb. 5, 2013, which claims priority benefit to European Patent No. 12155226.9 filed Feb. 13, 2012, the contents of all of which are incorporated herein by reference.

#The present invention relates to a method for improving the plant growth regulation of and/or enhancing crop plants, by applying to the crop plants a mixture of a plant growth regulator and a seaweed extract having an auxin to cytokinin ratio of at least 100:1, and to a composition comprising the same.

#Plant growth regulators are often used to regulate the growth and development of crop plants. For example, plant growth regulators are used to slow the development of a crop (such as oil seed rape) so that it flowers at a desired time, reduce the height of a crop (such as in cereals) so that it is less susceptible to lodging, increase nitrogen efficiency, regulate flowering and fruit set of a crop (such as fruit trees), and slow turfgrass growth rate to reduce mowing frequency.

#A glasshouse trial was setup to compare growth regulation effects of trinexapac-ethyl, seaweed extract, and mixtures of trinexapac-ethyl and seaweed extract at various rates, on both summer barley (Pasadena) and winter rye (Reknit).

#Table 2 describes the treatments made. Each treatment was applied as a spray to the leaves of the plant at plant growth stage 30 (start of stem elongation). Assessments of lodging were made 30 days after spray application; the results are shown in Table 3.

#TABLE 2 Treatment list Treatment Number Treatment description Treatment details Rate 1 Trinexapac-ethyl (TXP) Moddus ® 100 g AI/ha only 2 TXP only Moddus ® 200 g AI/ha 3 Seaweed extract only Kelpak ® 1 L/ha 4 Seaweed extract only Kelpak ® 2 L/ha 5 TXP + Seaweed extract Moddus ® + Kelpak ® 100 + 1 6 TXP + Seaweed extract Moddus ® + Kelpak ® 200 + 1 7 TXP + Seaweed extract Moddus ® + Kelpak ® 100 + 2 8 TXP + Seaweed extract Moddus ® + Kelpak ® 200 + 2 9 None Untreated check n/a