Quality of cut roses treated with natural products

Use of natural products like floral preservative has contributed to reduce indiscriminate use of chemical products. Therefore, this research tested solutions to keep quality and to increase commercial durability of 'Vega' cv. cut roses. It was used a casual design in a factorial schema composed by six post harvest treatments and four evaluation dates. The following treatments were conducted: 1) Distilled water; 2) Metil jasmonate (350 mu M) application in pulsing form for four hours; 3) Metil jasmonate (500 mu M) spraying; 4) Mint oil (100ppm); 5) Ginger oil (100ppm); and 6) Propolis (0.05%) used as a maintenance solution. Flowers stayed in an environment at 20 +/- 2 degrees C and 67 +/- 3% RH. Physiological and qualitative evaluations were conducted. Generally speaking, natural products presented a beneficial action over the shelf life of flowers. However, metil jasmonate spraying was, in all evaluated parameters, the most efficient product to maintain floral quality, providing a lower fresh mass loss and a lower respiratory rate of flowers. It also permitted improvement in coloration maintenance, water relative content and reducing sugars.