Vase life of cut rose cultivars 'Avalanche' and 'Fiesta' as affected by Nano-Silver and S-carvone treatments

Rosa hybrida L is an important commercial cut flower. The vase life of this flower is usually short due to vascular occlusion. We assessed the effect of Nano-Silver (NS) and S-carvone in prolonging the vase life of R. hybrida L cv. 'Avalanche' and 'Fiesta'. Hence, an experiment involving the treatment with NS at 0, 50, 100, and 200 mgL(-1) and S-carvone at 0, 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 mgL(-1) with 10 replicates was conducted. Applying NS pulse treatments increased vase life, water uptake rate, and fresh weight and reduced the number of bacteria, water loss, stomatal conductance and transpiration rate. However, S-carvone treatments did not have a positive effect on the vase-life parameters of cut rose flowers. NS pulse treatments increased relative fresh weight (RFW), and water uptake rate (WUR) and decreased water loss (WL) (%) by 10,89 and 31% for cultivar 'Avalanche', compared to the controls, respectively. Application of 200 mgL(-1) NS led to the highest vase life (18 days) for roses. The results show that NS increased vase life by suppressing stomata] opening, decreasing transpiration from leaves and inhibiting bacterial proliferation. (C) 2013 SAAB. Published by Elsevier BM. All rights reserved.