Water Relationships, Vase Life and Quality of Solidago Cut Spikes as affected by some Natural Extracts in Holding Solutions

Abstract

Solidago (Solidago canadensis L.) is an excellent cut spikes commonly used for indoor decoration in vases and bowls and as a dried flower. Microorganisms activities in vases solutions is the main cause of limiting the vase life of all cut flowers and preservative solutions is recommended to maintain quality and reduce losses after harvesting. To achieve this purpose, this research was conducted in vegetable and floriculture Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura Univ., Egypt during two successive seasons of 2019 and 2020. Three ethanolic leaf extracts (neem, oleander and guava) at concentrations of 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0% individually from each of them, besides AgNo3 (10 ppm) and the control (distilled water) treatments were examined. All holding solutions were fortified by sucrose in a concentration of 2.0%. Data were recorded for vase life (days), change in fresh weight (g/100g F.W./2days), the maximum increase in fresh weight (%), relative fresh weight (%), total water uptake(g/ spike), change in water uptake (g/100g F.W./2days), change in water loss (g/100g F.W./2days) and change in water balance (g/100g F.W./2days) were evaluation. Also, chlorophyll a, b, total chl., carotenoids, total sugar (%), N, P and K (%) and total bacterial counts (cfu/ml) were determined. Results showed that the more effective holding solutions in most of the studied postharvest characteristics especially vase life and water relationships besides minimizing the bacterial counts were 0.5% oleander extract, 2.0% neem extract and 2.0% guava extract plus 2.0% sucrose for all.