Extending the vase life of Chrysanthemum morifolium (Ramat.) Hemsl. using orange peels extract

Chrysanthemum morifolium (Ramat.) Hemsl. belongs to the Asteraceae family. It has a relatively long vase life but the flowers wilt after two weeks or more of harvesting. This study aimed to investigate the effect of supplementation of various levels of orange peels extract on chrysanthemum vase life. concentrations of 0, 5, 15 and 25 ppm of orange peels extract was used in the vase solutions. The study was performed as a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized design with three replications and the treatments were long-term and short-term (24 hr pulses). The studied characters included vase life, number of stem ends bacteria, total protein content, catalase and peroxidase activity, soluble weight, flower weight, petal water content and chlorophyll content. Orange peels extract increased the vase life of chrysanthemum, the longest vase life (16.33 days) was belonged to long-term treatment using 25 ppm orange peel extract. The lowest population of stem ends bacteria with the 228.84 Log10 CFU ml-1 was belonged to the treatment of 25 ppm orange peels extract which with decreasing the concentration of the extract, the population of bacteria at the stem ends increased significantly. The activity of catalase and peroxidase enzymes was significantly increased by treatment of 25 ppm orange peels extract compared with control treatment as 3.04 and 1.41 mg protein-1min-1, respectively. Overall, the concentration of 25 ppm orange peels extract is considered as an effective concentration for increasing chrysanthemum vase life and quality.