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Ethylene, MCP and bulb flowers |
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| Ethylene is known to cause wilting or petal drop in many flowers,
but most research has been done on dicots, such as carnation and pelargonium,
and less is known about ethylene responses of monocots (1). Consequently
we do not know whether it is important to avoid ethylene exposure during
handling of cut flowers such as daffodils, or whether treatment to protect
them from ethylene would improve quality. Recently a highly effective
and non-toxic product has been developed for treatment of flowers to protect
them from ethylene. The product is called EthylBloc® (available from
Floralife Inc.) and its active
ingredient is 1-methylcyclopropene (MCP). |
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Experimental |
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Narcissi were gathered from the gardens of the OSU Chadwick Arboretum. Tulips, alstroemeria and gladioli were obtained from a wholesale source. Flowers were kept in groups of 6 in distilled water in glass jars and in a room at 25° C with continuous fluorescent light at 10 μmol m-2s-1. For the first 24 h flowers were enclosed with 10 μl l-1 ethylene or 0.33 μl l-1 MCP, which was generated from EthylBloc® according to the manufacturer's instructions. The experiment with Gladiolus also included a treatment in which MCP treatment was followed with a 24 h ethylene treatment. Each flower stem was weighed at 2 to 3 day intervals. Changes from the original weights of stems were divided by the original weight of each and expressed as average percentage change in weight for a treatment. |
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(1) Van Doorn, W.G. 2001. Categories of Petal Senescence and Abscission: A Re-evaluation. Annals of Botany 87 : 447-456 |
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