Interaction of medicinal essential oils with calcium chloride and silver nitrate on quality and vase life of rose cut flowers

Improvement of quality and storage life of cut flowers is one of the most important subjects in postharvest and floriculture industry. In general, cut flowers have a short postharvest life and some treatments could enhance their vase life. This experiment was conducted to evaluate the interaction of calcium chloride and silver nitrate with essential oils on quality and vase life of rose cut flower cv. Grand Prix in a factorial experiment on the basis of completely randomized design with 3 replications. Rose cut flowers were treated with calcium chloride (1%) and silver nitrate (2 mg/l) for 24 hours and held in solution containing 2 mg/l thyme, savory, ajowan and distilled water (control) + 2% sucrose and kept at 25±3ºC and RH=65±5 % for 9 days. Different parameters including flower weight, flower and stem diameter, wilting of flowers and leaves, uptake of preservative solution and vase life were measured every 3 days during the storage period. The results showed that combination of silver nitrate and thyme was effective in improving the flower weight and diameter of cut roses by increasing the uptake of preservative solution and also reducing the wilting of flowers and leaves. Therefore, the vase life of cut flowers is increased significantly in this treatment compared to control. On contrary, pretreatment with calcium chloride and subsequent maintenance in vegetable oils decreases the quality and vase life of cut flowers by injury to flower stems.