Effects of Indolyl-3-Acetic Acid on the Movement of Nutrients within Plants

Abstract

IT has been suggested that apical dominance and the ‘correlative inhibition’ of lateral buds may involve the diversion of nutrients towards actively growing regions, and that the role of auxin in correlative inhibition may be to stimulate the movement of nutrients towards meristematic regions¹, which are known to be centres of high auxin production. Investigations of the movement of metabolites within the plant using isotopically ‘labelled’ compounds have, indeed, frequently indicated that such substances tend to move out of mature leaves towards actively growing regions such as young developing leaves and fruits^2,3; but no attempt has apparently been made to determine whether such movement is affected by the auxin content of the developing organs.