Isolation and characterization of a chemical from tomato apices that stimulates plant growth.

(...) The purified extract enhanced the growth of tomato, corn and rice seedlings at concentrations less than 1 mg.liter -1 . With Chlamydomonas, the purified extract increased cell division 111% at 0.1 mg.liter -1 and chlorophyll content 23% at 10 mg.liter -1 in 18 hours. Nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopy indicated that the purified fraction was a mixture of compounds having sugar moieties. Analysis by thin layer chromatography showed that the fraction was ninhydrin positive and more polar than the known plant hormones studied