Effect of post-harvest application of putrescine on the vase life of cultivars of gerbera cut flowers (Stanza and Pink Elegance)

Gerbera, one of the important cut flowers, is sensitive to early wilting and neck bending which reduce its postharvest vase life. Towards improving the quality and the vase life of “Stanza” and “Pink Elegance” cut flowers, this study was conducted using putrescine by using a factorial experiment in basic of completely randomized design with 4 replications. The treatments were included postharvest spraying with 4 mM of putrescine, pulse treatment with 8 mM putrescine, permanent solution (vase life solution) with 2 mM putrescine and control. The results showed that Stanza cultivar had a higher vase life index and better quality than Pink Elegance cultivar in postharvest. All putrescine treatments increased vase life in both cultivars; however, the highest vase life was related to permanent treatments, pulse treatment, spraying treatment respectively. In most cases, all treatments maintain the postharvest quality of Gerbera cut flowers for four and eight days. in both cultivars permanent treatment has more relative fresh weight, VSU, marketability, TSS, CAT, PAL, and less of EC and MDA. In contrast, control has the lowest quality although in some cases, such as TSS, EC, CAT and PAL, there was no significant difference with postharvest spraying treatment. The best result was obtained once permanent treatment of putrescine and pulse treatment were used.