Author(s): M. MALAKAR, P. ACHARYYA AND S. BISWAS

Abstract: Gerberas (Gerbera jamesonii H. Bolus) quite familiar in ‘Transvaal daisy’ name, a renowned cut flower since it has secured 5th position out of top ten commercially viable cut flowers of the world. Protracted durability for interior and vase decoration become mandatory, that’s why we had endeavored to find out the impact of silver nitrate (AgNo3) at divergent concentrations of 1000, 500, 100 and 50ppm along with sucrose 4% and deionized water (DW) both as pulsing and holding solution treatments on 3 gerbera cultivars namely ‘Rosalin’ (pink), ‘Dana Ellen’ (yellow) and ‘Sun Way’ (orange) gathered from a flower entrepreneur of Baruipur, South-24-Paraganas as it has moderate longevity. Out of 10 treatments, pulsing treatments consisted of AgNo3 @1000 and 500ppm duo with sucrose 4% had markedly extended the longevity of employed cut gerberas as compared to the untreated flowers. Besides, AgNo3 @25ppm+ sucrose 4% as holding solution also appreciably enhanced their vase-life. Among 3 cultivars ‘Dana Ellen’ registered utmost vase-life of 22.3 days followed by ‘Rosalin’ (21.5 days) and ‘Sun Way’ (19.9 days). Other vase-life characteristics manifested variable responses towards the treatments composed of preservative chemicals. Here, the yielded data of rest of seven treatment combinations exhibited their moderate efficacy in extending the vase-life while in some cases they adversely affected their longevity also. A strong correlation between the longevity of cut flowers and the amount of solution uptake was also established here.

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