Comparison of Vase Life and Quality of Gerbera in Preservative Solutions Including ‎Essential Oils and Chemicals

Water imbalance and vascular occlusion are two serious factors in sort lasting of cut gerbera. In order to evaluate the potentials of essential oils as an alternative to chemicals in the protective solution, a factorial experiment has been conducted in a completely randomized design with four replications. The treatments contain 8-hydroxyquinoline sulfate (0, 100 ppm) and thyme and savory essential oils (250, 500 ppm). Preservative solutions include distilled water and 8-HQS, both considered as the controls. Every day in a week, in addition to evaluating flower longevity, physiological parameters, plant water relations, and bactericidal population are measured. Results show that the protective solution with 250ppm of thyme essential oil offer 8.6 days longer vase life than the control. The 500ppm savory displays the best performance to protect the petal membrane stability, compared to both controls (distilled water or 8-HQS) at the end of the experiment. Gerbera petals, treated with thyme essential oil at 250 ppm, are fresher, having higher water content than other treatments, even in comparison with 8-HQS. During longevity, anthocyanin and dry matter have had an increasing trend with the Tss, showing a decreasing trend. The antibacterial properties of the essential oils have been significantly established in respect to the desired results of growth controlling of the microbial population in the preservative solution, even compared to 8-HQS, so it seems that the essential oils are a good alternative for antibacterial chemicals and can even reduce the harmful environmental side-effect of conventional preservative.