Drought Stress and Growth Regulation: Review in the Role of Hormonal Regulation

During their life cycle, plants are always exposed to multiple abiotic stresses that negatively affect their growth and development. Based on this fact, plants developed many mechanisms to reduce or tolerate those stresses. Plants undergo a wide range of morphological, physiological, and biochemical changes in response to environmental stresses. However, drought is one of many other environmental stresses which is considered to be the most significant environmental issues that affect the lives of organisms on the planet of Earth. With the recent increase in the severity of climate change, researchers have devoted their efforts to a deeper understanding of the effects of drought on the level of plant response from a physiological and biochemical standpoint. With the recent increase in the severity of climate changes, the problem of drought has gotten worse, thus researchers have focused their efforts on developing a deeper knowledge of how drought affects plant response at the physiological and biochemical levels. The plant undergoes several significant changes, one of which is an alteration in its hormonal balance. Specific hormones become more effective and assist the plant in sustaining a tolerable level of free radicals, while other hormones become less active under non-growth-promoting environments. Abscisic acid, sometimes referred to as the stress hormone, is one of these plant hormones. Its function under stress is to slow down the plant's growth to keep it at an acceptable level of growth. The hormones ascorbic acid, glycine betaine, alpha-tocopherol, melatonin, and Jasmonic are known to be growth-stimulating substances as well as non-enzymatic antioxidants that help suppress eliminated free radical formation. Focusing on this, this review highlighted the function of several plant hormones and the processes that accompany them in reducing the harm caused to plants by drought stress