Enhancing vase life of gladiolus cut flowers with 8-HQS as biocidal agent in vase solution

The short vase life of economically important cut flowers like gladiolus causes huge monetary losses to the floriculture industry. Therefore, this study was conducted to mitigate microbial decay of cut flowers in a vase solution by using 8-hydroxyquinoline-5-sulfonic acid (8-HQS) as a biocidal agent in the vase solution. For this purpose, gladiolus cut flowers were kept in three treatments: control (0 ppm 8-HQS), 200 ppm 8-HQS and 300 ppm 8-HQS. The results showed that maximum stalk weight loss (25.20%), petals wilting rate (5.00) and electrolyte leakage (21.53%) were observed in the control, which was contrary to 8-HQS treatments. However, 8-HQS treatments reduced stalk weight loss, petals wilting and electrolyte leakage and increased the number of open and unopened on day 6 of the experiment. Similarly, higher water uptake, relative water content of petals and vase life were also observed in 8-HQS treatments. Among 8-HQS levels, 300 ppm concentration showed the maximum potential for increasing the vase life of gladiolus spikes.