OPENING FLOWER BUDS AFTER STORAGE

Pulsing ‘White Sim’ carnations buds with 10% sucrose before a truck shipment resulted in high quality flowers after placing them in water 5 days later.

Standard chrysanthemums, ‘Albatross’, reacted similarly to sucrose pulsing before a 6 day simulated truck shipment at 2%. The sucrose concentration should not exceed 5% because of possible leaf injury.
Buds of inflorescence measuring 9 cm across were used in the pulsing; these opened to 15 cm in water after storage.
Earlier work on ‘Albatross’ showed that buds could be stored for up to 3 weeks if the bud diameter was 12 cm or larger.
Opening of the latter was in 2% sucrose.

Tight buds of Strelitzia reginae were pretreated with a pulsing solution of 10% sucrose before storage.
The best temperature for storing for 4 weeks was at 8°C. Buds were treated with benomyl prior to storage to eliminate botrytis.

Gladiolus spikes (tight stage) were pulsed for 20 hours with 20% sucrose and were then stored for 10 days.
Floret opening and quality of these spikes was better than fresh untreated spikes.

Symposium on Production of Potted Plants and Cut Flowers

Anton M. Kofranek

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1976.64.30