PLANT GROWTH REGULATORS AS A TARGET FOR CHEMICAL INDUSTRY RESEARCH

Practical progress in discovery and commercial application, however, has been very much slower than for pesticides. The reasons for this lie partly in the greater difficulty of the science involved and the greater subtlety of the biological effects sought. These make it much harder to discover and develop good, valuable products. The market need is also much harder to define. The need to control devastating pests is obvious to farmers and chemical companies alike. PGR needs are much less obvious or universal.

The commitment of research and development (R&D) resources to PGRs is, therefore, fraught with greater uncertainty than pesticide R&D. Conventional pesticide R&D is faced with increasingly expensive programmes to establish toxicological and environmental safety. This, coupled with the costs of determining field performance, is forcing the industry to concentrate on very major targets. PGR R&D is expensive and high risk. Only the largest and most convincing targets can, therefore, command targeted PGR research. Products for specialty use in horticultural are only likely to arise as a "spin-off" from a larger target.

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