Investigating the Potential of Increasing the Vase Life of Cut Flower of Narcissus By Using Sour Orange Fruit Extract and Sucrose in the Storage Conditions

Narcissus is one of the very popular flowers among iranians. this flowerhas a short life. to investigate the increasing of vase life of cut narcissus, sourorange fruit extract in concentrations of 2.5, 4, 5.5 and 7 ml l-1 and sucrose inconcentrations of 3, 4, 5 and 6% were used. in addition, distilled water wasused as a control treatment. in this experiment, characters of vase life andpercentage of unopened buds were evaluated in end of experiment, but therelative fresh weight, water absorption, soluble solids of petals and stemswere measured from first to 29th day. the longest vase life was obtained inthe treatment of sour orange fruit extract with concentration of 4 ml l-1 with30.33 days and the shortest life of control was obtained with 18.33 days. also,the least and highest percentage of unopened buds were observed in treatedflowers with sour orange fruit extract of 4 ml l-1 and sucrose of 6%, respectively.the maximum amount of fresh weight, solution absorption, soluble solids ofpetals and stems were obtained in concentration of 2.5 ml l-1 of sour orangefruit extract. in general, results show that sour orange fruit extract andsucrose in low concentrations can be used as healthy, cheap and easy accesscompounds in vase solution of cut flower of narcissus.