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Abstract
Abstract In the floriculture industry, postharvest senescence is one of the glaring challenges restricting the marketability of cut flowers. Hence, maintaining good quality of cut flowers and extending flower longevity are considered to be the most crucial factors in the cut flower trade. Therefore, to gain better understanding of the specific physiological and biochemical aspects of petal senescence we conducted an experiment to evaluate the efficacy of Boric acid (BA) on flower longevity in excised flowers of Digitalis purpurea L. Isolated buds were harvested at stage IV i.e, 1 day before anthesis and divided into 5 sets, with one set of buds held in distilled water (DW) designated as control. The other 4 sets were supplemented with 24h pulse treatment of different concentrations of BA viz., 50, 100, 150 and 200 µM. The application of BA at 150 µM concentration was found to be most effective in increasing flower longevity by about 4 days as compared to control. The enhanced longevity coincided with higher values of floral diameter, fresh mass, dry mass and solution uptake. Flowers with delayed senescence also retained higher soluble proteins, sugars and phenols in addition to lower bacterial density compared to control. Moreover, this ameliorated flower longevity has also been shown to be positively associated with increased activities of various antioxidant enzymes viz., superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and reduced activity of lipoxygenase (LOX).
Highlights
Flowers are very interesting and complex commodities used in vase displays, flower bouquets and indoor decorations, etc
Flower diameter The application of 24-h pulse duration of 150 μM Boric acid (BA) resulted in substantial increase in the flower longevity against control
The diameter of flowers supplemented with 150 μM BA was higher than the control which decreased gradually with the progression of time from day 2 (D2) to day 4 (D4) (Figure 2)
Summary
Flowers are very interesting and complex commodities used in vase displays, flower bouquets and indoor decorations, etc. These are susceptible to major post-harvest losses due to their limited vase life and highly perishable nature (Thakur et al, 2020). Floriculture researchers have developed various technologies for different flowers in order to maximize the attractiveness of flowers for a longer period of time. These include pre-cooling, selection of appropriate storage methods and storage temperature, and standardization of holding solutions for a specific cut flower (Gupta et al, 2018). The flower senescence is governed by the interplay of several growth regulators viz. ethylene, cytokinins, gibberellic acid, auxins, jasmonic acid, salicylic acid and abscisic acid (Iqbal et al, 2017)
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