Efficacy of chitosan spraying on improving quality of Dendrobium Sonia 'No. 17' inflorescence
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Publication Details
Author list: Uthairatanakij A., Jitareerat P., Obsuwan K.
Publisher: International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS)
Publication year: 2008
Volume number: 766
Issue number: 766
Start page: 291
End page: 298
Number of pages: 8
ISBN: 978-90-6605-156-0
ISSN: 0567-7572
eISSN: 2406-6168
Languages: English-Great Britain (EN-GB)
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Abstract
Chitosan has been reported to improve yield and quality of orchid. However, there was no information about the effect of chitosan treatment on postharvest quality of orchid cut flowers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine whether there were differences in growth and quality of cut Dendrobium Sonia 'No. 17' inflorescences between chitosan sprayed or untreated controls. The chitosan treatments were additionally applied from regular irrigation and fertilization. Dendrobium Sonia 'No. 17' was sprayed six times at weekly intervals with chitosan at the final concentrations of 0 (water), 200, 400, or 600 mg'L-1 when the inflorescence was 5 cm in length. Inflorescences were cut at commercial maturity stage and divided into two groups. Measurements for ten inflorescences from each treatment were recorded for fresh weight of inflorescences, numbers of floret, dry matter, width of open floret, and fresh weight of open floret and floret bud. The results showed that inflorescences sprayed with 400 mg. L-1 of chitosan had the highest fresh weight (29.1 g per inflorescence compared to 27.5 g of the untreated) and inflorescences treated with 600 mg. L-1 of chitosan showed increased petal width (3.13 cm compared to 2.77 cm of the untreated); however, there were no statistically significant differences among treatments. Additionally, no chitosan treatments affected floret numbers, fresh weight of floret buds and open florets, or dry weight of open florets, but they significantly increased the dry weight of floret buds. The stem ends of another group, of inflorescences were re-cut and held in distilled water at 20ฐ C. The quality of cut inflorescences was then measured at two day intervals. There were no differences in the displayed life, percentage of bud opening and respiration rate among all treatments. Chitosan at 200 mg. L-1 induced excessive floret dropping on day 16. These results imply that the concentration and application method of chitosan spray are crucial factors in improving quality of cut orchid inflorescence.
Keywords
Displayed life, Petal width
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