Physiological postharvest attributes in the loose flower of tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa) cv. Arka Prajwal as influenced by packaging material and storage

Tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa Linn.) is one of the most important perennial bulbous flowering plants and belongs to the family Agavaceae. Tuberose loose flowers retain their freshness only for a few days under ordinary condition. In view of rapidly growing demand of tuberose loose flowers in market, there is a need for extending its postharvest quality, hence, the present investigation was undertaken to study the response of different packaging materials, viz., woven bag, high density polyethylene (HDPE) 51 micron bag, low density polyethylene (LDPE) 25 micron bag, muslin cloth bag and bamboo basket (control-without packaging) and two storage conditions, i.e., ambient condition (2 ± 1°C) and cold storage (or low temperature) condition (5 ± 1°C and 85-95% relative humidity) on a few physiological postharvest attributes namely, physiological loss in weight, respiration rate and moisture content. The study was conducted on fully mature loose flowers of Single petalled tuberose cv. Arka Prajwal at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. It was observed that packaging and storage conditions significantly influenced all studied attributes. The minimum physiological loss in weight (9.66%, 10.07%) and respiration rate (80.22, 78.28ml/Co₂/kg/h) was recorded in flowers packed in HDPE 51 micron under ambient and cold storage conditions, where as the maximum physiological loss in weight (21.93%, 21.69%) and respiration rate (114.92, 111.34 ml/Co₂/kg/h) was noticed on last day under ambient and cold storage conditions. The maximum and water content (85.01%, 86.31%) was obtained when flowers were packed in an HDPE 51 micron bag under both the conditions and the minimum (76.25%, 74.47%) under control treatment (bamboo basket) in both the storage conditions. Physiological loss in weight and respiration rate were found to increase with the increase in storage duration period while water content tends to decrease with the increase in storage duration period.