Effects of nanosilver and sucrose on vase life of cut Rose flower (Rosa hybrid cv. ‘Royal’)

Abstract

In cut flowers increasing of quality and duration of storage and minimizing wastes after harvest is very important. Silver thiosulphate (STS) is one of the materials that in this connection is used, but because of environmental pollutant, its application has been limited. Recent study evaluated the possibility of replacing nanosilver instead of STS. In this study, experimental design was factorial with two factors, including sucrose and several types of chemicals such as nanosilver, hydroxyquinoline citrate (HQC), copper nitrate and STS with three replications that were performed on the cut Rose flower cultivar royal using pulsed method. During the experiment, traits such as vase-life of flower, electrolyte leakage (EL), relative water content (RWC), leaf and flower qualitative traits and percentage of flowers opening were evaluated. Analysis of variance showed that between traits among treatments, there are significant differences. Mean comparisons showed that the use of STS in combination with 8 percent sucrose had the most effect on traits, so that vase-life of cut Rose flowers has increased up to 67.15 days. Application of nanosilver using concentration of 5 ppm in combination with 4 percent sucrose also could, to reach the vase-life of flowers to 67.13 days that it seems to bring effective treatment to increase the vase- life of cut Rose flowers. Use of STS in combination with different concentrations of sucrose and 15 ppm nanosilver with 4 percent sucrose had also a significant difference in maintaining of quality and vase-life of flowers other than chemical treatments. Key words: Sucrose, silver thiosulphate (STS), hydroxyquinoline citrate (HQC), copper nitrate, nanosilver, Rose cultivar royal.