ABSTRACT
Most of the winter annual flowers have very attractive flowers, and these winter annuals are generally grown as land cover or border plants in gardens. Due to their unique flower qualities, striking colors, and seasonality, many of these flowers are sold in the retail markets as cut 104flowers. Hence, this work was carried out at the Directorate of Floricultural Research, IARI, New Delhi, during 2013-2014 to evaluate the postharvest keeping quality of winter annuals. Five winter annual flowers, namely antirrhinum, dimorphotheca, lupin, larkspur, and Sweet William, were evaluated for vase life under five different preservatives like sucrose, 8-hydroxyquinoline citrate (8-HQC), aminooxy acetic acid (AOA), benzyl adenine (BA), and aluminum sulfate ( Al2SO4 ) in different combinations. From the results, it was observed that in all flowers, the treatments with plant bioregulators (AOA & BA) and aluminum sulfate significantly improved the vase life of flowers than other treatments. Vase life of flowers treated with BA was maximum in antirrhinum (9.3 days), dimorphotheca (8 days), and larkspur (8 days); lupin treatment with 8-HQC improved the vase life up to 6 days, and in Sweet William, the vase life of 9.67 days was observed after treatment with AOA. Maximum stem elongation was observed in lupin (19 cm) after treatment with Al2SO4 , whereas maximum flower diameter of dimorphotheca was recorded in treatment with AOA. Other quality parameters such as flower weight, percentage flower opening, and vase solution uptake rate (VSUR) were significantly improved in treatments with AOA, BA, and Al2SO4 . Based on these results, it was evident that among the annual flowers evaluated, antirrhinum and Sweet William were found to be most suitable for commercial use as cut flower on the basis of their vase life.
