Postharvest handling of greenhouse roses

Flowers give immense pleasure to everyone but lasts for few days. Roses are number one cut flower in global flower trade. Green house grown cut roses fetch better price in the market due to better quality. Postharvest life of flowers is considered as one of the factor contributing to the quality. Therefore, an attempt has been made to increase the post harvest life and keeping quality of cut roses by using different techniques like holding, pulsing and storage. To increase the vaselife cut roses were harvested and subjected to different chemical treatments like BA, 8-HQC, AgNO3, STS, Sucrose alone or in combinations. Simultaneously, the flowers were pulsed in the chemical preservatives containing higher amount of sugars and biocides for 12 and 24 hours. Further, these pulsed flowers were cold stored either wet or dry conditions at 2o C for different durations to evaluate their performance after storage. After pulsing and storage these cut rose were evaluated for physical parameters like change in weight, solution uptake, vaselife, appearance; biochemical parameters like reducing and non reducing sugars& proteins and microbial growth in the left over vase solution.