Effect of stage of harvest, storage temperature, pulsing, preservative chemicals and packaging on vase life of Gladiolus (Gladiolus hybridus Hort.)

Abstract

Gladiolus is an important cut flower, referred as queen of bulbous flowers, throughout Commercially cultivated for its long lasting spikes having florets of varied colour, shape and size. Commercially for easy handling and packaging Gladiolus spikes are harvested when basal floret show colour stage. It is observed that at this stage many florets are yet to grow and open but many a time they fail to open and even bend under water depletion. Therefore under this investigation, suitable varieties, optimum harvest stages, pulsing, packages, storage temperature and vase solutions were determined for better shelf life and vase life of Gladiolus cut flowers. Two Gladiolus cvs. Local Yellow and Psittacinus hybrid spikes harvested at three harvest stages were evaluated. Observation on spike length, rachis length, percent florets opened, fresh weight, transpiration loss of water, uptake of water, water balance, % bent/breakase, shelf life and vase life revealed that maxium vase life of 8.92days was obtained with cv. Psittacinus hybrid cut flowers where as cv. Local Yellow spikes gave vase life of 7.78 days. Among three harvest stages of cv. Psittacinus hybrid spikes evaluated revealed that spikes harvested at basal floret showing stage gave longer ase life of 9 days followed by 8.5 days of vase life with spikes harvested at basal floret half emerged and vase life was least (7.5 days) when harvested at basal floret was fully emerged. Among five packages tried, cellophane paper wrapping during storage of Gladiolus spikes was found more suitable in mainitaning the flower freshness by reducing 10.78-24.30% PLW as compared to the other packages evaluated. Pulsing with sucrose 8% and AgN03 250 ppm improved the floret opening (89%) and vase life (10.28 days) over the control (7.7% and 8.12 days respectively) in cv. Psittacinus hybrid spikes. Storage up to 6 days at 4 oC was found optimum with respect to vase life and floret opening where as storage for 4 days at 7 oC was found optimum. Storage for two days at RT reduced the vase life (5.22 days) of Gladiolus cv. Psittacinus hybrid spike. Vase solution of BA 50 ppm and STS 20 ppm increased the vase life of Psittacinus hybrid spikes by 3 days over the control (8.66 days).