Postharvest Quality and Longevity of Gerbera Varieties as Affected by Different Floral Preservatives

Abstract

Gerbera, Gerbera jamesonii of Asteraceae family is grown for garden decoration, cut flowers and stands at fourth position in international flower market. Cut gerbera flowers are sensitive to microbial contamination, insufficient water uptake and short vase life. Use of sucrose with organic acids as preservative solution may help to increase the postharvest life of cut flowers. So, an experiment was conducted in the Horticulture Laboratory of Lamjung Campus during January 2018 to evaluate the postharvest life of two gerbera cultivar viz. Red Explosion and Samara in different preservative solutions viz. salicylic acid, ascorbic acid and citric acid each of 100 ppm and distilled water (DW) as control each with 3% sucrose. Experiment was conducted in two factorials CRD with three replications. Among the cultivars, Red Explosion showed significantly better uptake of water (3.42 ml/day), minimum weight loss (5.54% at 13th day) and longer vase life (18.16 days) compared to Samara which had (2.39 ml/day) water uptake, 7.26% weight loss at 13th day and vase life of 7.26 days. Significant difference in post-harvest life across the preservative solutions was seen. Flowers preserved in citric acid had better water uptake (4.22 ml/day), minimum weight loss (2.63% at 13th day) and longer vase life (20.50 days) among all preservative solutions. The interaction of varieties with preservatives were found significantly different on which Red Explosion preserved in citric acid and Samara preserved in ascorbic acid were found best in case of vase life, water uptake and have minimum weight loss.

Keywords: Asteraceae, ornamental plants, longevity, organic acids, vase solution

Cite this Article

Anil Khanal, Amit Khanal, Sujata Poudel et al. Postharvest Quality and Longevity of Gerbera Varieties as Affected by Different Floral Preservatives. Research & Reviews: Journal of Botany. 2018; 7(2): 29–35p.