Salicylic acid and plant defenses

[DirtMechanic]

I recently was reading about salicylic acid and how it intereferes with the grow hormones called auxins, even though salicylic acid is considered to be a hormone itself. I have read works that say SA is in the auxin family, which is an early growth stimulator group and I have read other works that indicate it is a contributor to senescence hormones found at the end of a plants cycle. This seems to be 2 crossed purposes. This last and very recent paper I was reading was proving that SA has an antagonistic relationship with Auxins and if SA is present ( you used aspirin) it will denegrate auxin and put the plant into a defense mode, which seems to come at the expense of the growth mode assisted by unimpeded auxin availability. I have always been a proponent of using aspirin for powdery mildew control and some other uses, but now I suspect I would only consider its use on a mature plant so that it does not hormonally inhibit growth by cancelling the growth hormone auxins. I thought it would be useful to write this out for my own understanding, so I will leave this here.

 

[Becky]

There was me thinking that salicylic acid was just something people used on their skin! You learn something new every day