Plant Bio-regulators for Enhancing Grain Yield and Quality of Legumes: A Review

Abstract

Plant bio-regulators (PBRs) are hormone-like natural or synthetic compounds that are able to increase the yields, alter growth patterns, nutritional qualities and provide resistance to various kinds of stresses (cold, heat, drought, insect, diseases, salinity) when applied at very low concentration to the plants. PBRs are known to enhance source-sink relationship and help in stimulating the photosyntheates thereby reduce flower drop, helps in fruit and seed development in better way ultimately improving the yield of the crops. Nowadays, abiotic stresses are major factors limiting crop productivity and sustainability throughout the globe. Bio-regulators application on crops induces long-term thermo tolerance (heat and cold) in plants as these can modulate plant responses to stresses at the cellular, tissue or organ level and hence are able to enhance the yield, quality and nutritional aspects of the food and forage legumes in the changing climatic scenario. Application of bio-regulators on crops is farmer friendly, convenient and effective approach for improving the productivity and quality of legume crops. The influence of some of the important plant bioregulators on growth, yield, quality and stress management in important food and forage legume crops are reviewed in this article.