Postharvest longevity of peach flowers on cut stems
M.Z. Beckmann-Cavalcante, M.P.D. Lima, S.Z. Fischer, A.H. Ricardo, E.R.T. Stumpf
Acta Horticulturae 1000: 203-208.
2013
บทคัดย่อ
The aesthetic quality of peach flowers (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) can make it a good choice for use as cut flowers. The flower branches of peach trees present perfect and complete flowers with colors ranging from white to deep pink. The objective was to determine the postharvest longevity of peach flowers obtained following pruning for sale as cut flowers. At the time of pruning, branches of three peach cultivars (‘Maciel’, ‘Leonense’ and ‘Jade’) were randomly collected from a commercial orchard in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. The stems were standardized to 40 cm in length and were placed in a room (air temperature 13 ± 1°C and relative humidity 80 ± 5%) in containers filled with 1 L of tap water. Experiment was performed in a completely randomized block design in a factorial arrangement with 3 cultivars (‘Maciel’, ‘Leonense’ and ‘Jade’) and 8 keeping durations in water (0, 2, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14 and 16 days) after harvest. Each treatment was replicated for four times with five stems per replication. The assessments were made by counting the number of buds that failed to reach anthesis (closed flowers), number of open flowers, and the number of senesced flowers that were removed. Results showed that more than half (11 stems) of stems of ‘Jade’ kept ornamental quality for at least 16 days from the beginning of the experiment. By this time, ‘Leonense’ showed 35% and ‘Maciel’ showed 55% of stem discard. The stems of ‘Maciel’, ‘Leonense’ and ‘Jade’ meet the minimum requirements for postharvest longevity.