The genus Trichoderma comprises a group of filamentous ascomycetes that are now widely used in industrial applications because of their ability to produce extracellular hydrolases in large amounts. In addition, strong inducible promoters together with high secretory capacity have made Trichoderma an attractive host for heterologous protein production. Several promoters of genes encoding hydrolytic enzymes have been investigated in detail regarding their cis-acting elements and trans-acting factors. Potent inducer molecules, for both xylanolytic and cellulolytic enzyme systems, have been identified and characterized. Furthermore, models for the recognition of the insoluble substrates cellulose and xylan have been developed based on a large set of experiments. This mini-review summarises the considerable amount of data accumulated over the past three decades.