Articles
EFFECTS OF EXOGENOUSLY SUPPLIED SUCROSE ON POSTHARVEST LONGEVITY OF GREVILLEA ‘SYLVIA’ INFLORESCENCES
Article number
464_129
Pages
543 – 543
Language
Abstract
Grevillea is an Australian native plant widely used for landscape purposes.
Lately there has been increased interest in using some Grevillea hybrids, such as ‘Sylvia’, as cut flowers.
However, short vaselife (e.g. 3 to 7 days) has been identified as a problem.
This short vaselife may be associated with depletion of respirable substrates.
Two experiments addressing this proposition were conducted.
The first investigated leaf retention on inflorescence stems (i.e. plus or minus leaves) for a range of vase solution sucrose concentrations (viz. 0, 0.5, 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 % w/v). The second experiment investigated the relationship between inflorescence maturity (viz. perianth splitting, early looping, late looping and fully looped as defined in Beal et al. (1995)) and sucrose supply (i.e. 0 and 3 %). These vaselife experiments were conducted in a constant temperature room (22 ± 2°C) at ≥50 % relative humidity.
Vaselife, general appearance and fresh mass of the inflorescences were each improved by supplying sucrose at all concentrations.
The best result was achieved with 3 % sucrose which gave a vaselife of 10.1 ± 0.2 days.
At higher sucrose concentrations, vaselife was slightly less (e.g. 9.7 ± 0.4 days at 5 %), and wilting of styles and leaf blackening were observed.
The presence or absence of leaves had no effect on vaselife.
Inflorescences picked at the early looping stage (ca. 100 % florets split and 10 to 50 % styles looped) and treated with 3 % sucrose had the best overall vaselife and visual appearance.
Lately there has been increased interest in using some Grevillea hybrids, such as ‘Sylvia’, as cut flowers.
However, short vaselife (e.g. 3 to 7 days) has been identified as a problem.
This short vaselife may be associated with depletion of respirable substrates.
Two experiments addressing this proposition were conducted.
The first investigated leaf retention on inflorescence stems (i.e. plus or minus leaves) for a range of vase solution sucrose concentrations (viz. 0, 0.5, 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 % w/v). The second experiment investigated the relationship between inflorescence maturity (viz. perianth splitting, early looping, late looping and fully looped as defined in Beal et al. (1995)) and sucrose supply (i.e. 0 and 3 %). These vaselife experiments were conducted in a constant temperature room (22 ± 2°C) at ≥50 % relative humidity.
Vaselife, general appearance and fresh mass of the inflorescences were each improved by supplying sucrose at all concentrations.
The best result was achieved with 3 % sucrose which gave a vaselife of 10.1 ± 0.2 days.
At higher sucrose concentrations, vaselife was slightly less (e.g. 9.7 ± 0.4 days at 5 %), and wilting of styles and leaf blackening were observed.
The presence or absence of leaves had no effect on vaselife.
Inflorescences picked at the early looping stage (ca. 100 % florets split and 10 to 50 % styles looped) and treated with 3 % sucrose had the best overall vaselife and visual appearance.
Authors
J.K. Ligawa, D.C. Joyce, S.E. Hetherington
Keywords
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