Effect of packaging materials and storage conditions on flowers characters and post-harvest quality of chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) cv. shanti

The dry storage of flowers of chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.) cv. Shanti was carried out at Department of Horticulture, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar during 2007–08. The four packaging materials viz., Cling film, polyethylene, cellophane paper and corrugated card boxes were used to store the flowers for one, two and three days at different storage environments such as ambient temperature, zero energy cool chamber and cold storage at 10′ C. The experiment was planned according to the CRD design with three replications. It was observed that the flowers packed in polyethylene and stored in cold store at 10°C expressed maximum flower diameter (5.94 cm), fresh weight of flowers (16.24 g), minimum physiological loss in weight (0.69%) and minimum abscised petals/flower (2.17).The moisture content played the critical role.