The Effect of Ethanol and Cycloheximide on the Vase Life of Cut Flowers Alstroemeria (<i>Alstroemeria hybrida</i>)

Abstract

<em>Alstroemeria</em> is one of the most beautiful flowers in the family Alstroemeriaceae. One of the major problems of this cut flower is short life of leaves, this fact reduces the economic value of this cut flower. Abscission of petal before wilting is also considered as one of the most important problems of this flower. Petals of this flower are very sensitive to ethylene. A factorial experiment based on completely randomized design was conduced to study the interaction effect of ethanol and foliar spraying cycloheximide (CHI) on the vase life and postharvest characteristics of alstroemeria with four levels of ethanol (0, 2, 4 and 6%) and foliar spraying CHI in three levels (0, 0.5, 1 mM) in three replications and 36 experimental plots with five cut flowers per plot. ANOVA showed that the effects of interaction ethanol and CHI on the measured traits were significant at 5% for the vase life and 1% for the other traits. Results showed that the treatment of 1 mM CHI and 6% ethanol with 15.94 days has the maximum vase life in compared with the control (10.74 days).