The 12th International Conference on Plant Growth Substances was held
from 26th to 31st August 1985 in Heidelberg, F. R. G., under the
auspices of the IPGSA (International Plant Growth Sub- stances
Association) and the University of Heidelberg in its 599th year. As many
as 750 participants from 40 countries all over the world attended the
conference, including guests and staff members of the local organizers.
Fine days provided an excellent background for a fruitful and pleasant
meeting and all the activities accompanying the scientific programme.
During the conference all current aspects concerning growth substances
were treated. Altogether the par- ticipants presented 207 oral reports
organized in four parallel sessions and about 300 posters, for which 2
hours' poster sessions were reserved each day. The conference gained in
perspective from the arrangement of five workshops in which special
aspects and the most recent results could be presented by specialists in
the particular fields. The topics of the workshop were: actual methods
of hormone detection (orga- nizer H. Kende), auxin transport (organizer
R. Hertel), growth sub- stances and tumour formation (organizer J.
Schroder), evolution of the hormone system (organizer W. Jacobs) and
problems of ap- plication (organizer J. Jung). The abstracts of all
presentations were collected in a Book of Abstracts available during the
conference, giving a rough surveY of the whole field of plant growth
substances in its present state.