Postharvest life of different cultivars of Narcissus (daffodil) as influ-enced by various preservative solutions

Abstract

Post harvest life has always being of critical importance in high value flower crops. Our investigation was concerned in evaluating the varietal response of different preservative soloutions on post harvest life of Narcissus (daffodil). The effects of the application of citric acid, aluminium sulphate, silver thiosulphate and calcium chloride at three different levels 0, 100 ppm, 200 ppm along with carbohydrate source sucrose 4% on different floral attributes of Narcissus (daffodil) cultivars California, Pheasants eye and Acetea were stud-ied. The recorded traits included water loss/water uptake ratio, scape length, cup depth, cup diameter, relative water content and membrane stability index. Results of this study showed that within all treatments aluminium sulphate + sucrose 4% showed the best effect. Among the cultivars evaluated California proves best in term of parameters studied (overall post harvest life). The minimum values for these traits were recorded in the untreated control.