Effect of preservative chemicals on post harvest behaviour of ageratum cut flowers

Ageratum is an up coming new potential cut flower crop belonging to the family Asteraceae. In India it is being grown for its attractive cut flowers around big cities which are widely used for interior decoration in vases and also for bouquet making. In order to study the effect of preservative chemicals on the post harvest behaviour of the ageratum cutflowers an experiment was conducted in the laboratory at Floriculture Unit, Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, UAS, Dharwad during the year 2001-02, by including different concentrations(0.5 and 1 Mm) of cobalt sulphate and aluminium sulphate in sucrose solutions(2% and 4%). Water uptake and subsequently water loss was recorded highest in the cutflowers placed in either aluminium sulphate or cobalt sulphate at 1.0 mM in 4 per cent sucrose solutions.Flowers held in 1.0 mM aluminium sulphate plus sucrose 4 per cent and 1.0 mM cobalt sulphate plus sucrose 4 per cent maintained maximum fresh weight (97.33 and 92.60%, respectively) on 16^th day. Among the treatments, aluminium sulphate and cobalt sulphate at 1.0 mM in 4 per cent sucrose solutions were most effective in enhancing the vase life of ageratum flower stalks.