Effect of pre-harvest factors on growth and vase life of flowers in chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.)
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Date
2019
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Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Abstract
The present investigations entitled “Effect of pre-harvest factors on growth and vase life of flowers in chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.)‟‟ were carried out at Research Farm and Postgraduate Laboratory, Department of Floriculture and Landscaping, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab during 2018-2019. Effect of various levels of nitrogen (0, 10, 15 and 20 g m-2) on growth and flowering of chrysanthemum cultivar „White Star‟ was studied to standardize the cost-effective dose of nitrogen for maximum yield and quality cut flower production. The experiment was laid out as randomized block design with five replications under each treatment and the results showed that there was significant increase in all the parameters in each treatment as compared to control. The earliness in bud appearance (88.20 days), number of flowers per stem (10.60), weight of cut stem (30.21 gm), stem diameter (7.24 mm), flower diameter (13.01 cm), leaf area (1579.78 cm2) and vase life in distilled water (20.07 days) was recorded to be the maximum when the plants were fertilized with nitrogen @ 10 g m-2 and this dose was the best dose that can be recommended as economic dose for commercial cut flower production in chrysanthemum. In another experiment different concentrations of floral preservatives were used as holding solutions to standardize the optimum concentration to increase the post-harvest keeping quality of chrysanthemum cut stems. The chrysanthemum cut stems harvested from the field fertilized with the best level of nitrogen i.e. 10 g m-2 were placed in different holding solutions containing sucrose (2%), aluminium sulphate (300 ppm) and benzyl adenine (25 and 50 ppm) along with distilled water (control). The experiment was laid out using completely randomised block design with three replications under seven treatments. The holding solution containing sucrose (2%) + aluminium sulphate (300 ppm) + benzyl adenine (25 ppm) was recorded to be the best treatment with respect to the maximum delay in leaf yellowing (17.89 days), complete floret senescence (29.98 days) and improved water uptake (138.67 ml/cut stem) as well as the maximum vase life (27.22 days) of the chrysanthemum stems.
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