Discussion
Using common household items, such as
Rolaids and table sugar, this study was to prolong the vase life of roses,
daffodils, and carnations. Sugar, or sucrose, is a very important molecule to
plants and is used in many metabolic processes.
Adding sucrose can improve the condition of a cut flower. Roses placed in sucrose solution did not show
the deleterious effects of placing roses in pure water. Roses in water have wilted leaves and flowers
and the flower buds don’t open and the flower neck is bent (Van Doorn, 1998). In our experiment, control flowers in water exhibit
these same symptoms, buds not opening and necks being bent. However, excess sucrose
can also impair flower development (Durkin, 1979a), decrease water flow in the
stem as the amount of sucrose increases (Durkin, 1979b), and increase the
number of microbes in the vase solutions. We did not see any of the effects of
excess sucrose.
In this study, the flowers didn’t last for
an extended period of time. Daffodils were the first flowers to die in most
treatments, and not many measurements were taken because the heads of the
flowers already had an angle. Studies have shown that when daffodils are placed
in a vase with other flowers, they have a negative affect on the other flowers
(Van Doorn, 1998). This wasn’t an effect in this experiment since every flower
was in a separate vase; however, it was questioned if the daffodils could have
affected the other flowers by a volatile substance such as ethylene.
It has been reported that
supplementing cut roses and carnations with calcium will increase their vase
life (Torre et al. 1999, Eung et al 1998). The results of our experiment using
a typical household item, Rolaids, as our Calcium source showed no appreciable
difference in vase life in the three species of flowers tested. Our calcium
treatments did not prove to be beneficial in maintaining carnation head width,
and contrary to published reports (Torre et al. 1999) did not delay senescence
in roses. One possible explanation may be the calcium in Rolaids is not readily
available to the plant cells. The calcium in Rolaids comes as CaCO3 whereas
the calcium in previously published experiments was in the form CaCl2
and Ca(NO3)2. Another possible explanation for our
results may be due to the Rolaids’ containing MgOH. MgOH may raise the pH of
the solution. This in turn may have reduced the plants’ ability to transport Calcium
and other nutrients. The Floralife Inc. packet used to treat other plants
included an acidifier. Further research is required to clarify which of these
scenarios, if either, is responsible for our results.
Statistically, there was a significant
difference between the vase life of roses and carnations compared to daffodils
in the Floralife commercial packet treatment, and between roses and daffodils
in the control water treatment. When first cut, the roses and carnations had a
stem length of six to eight inches and the daffodils had been cut to a longer
stem length. Since roses and carnations lived longer, this could have been due
to the increase of water flow with a decrease in stem length (Durkin, 1979b),
whereas the daffodils had a longer stem causing the water flow to be decreased.
For the treatments, the packet was found to be significantly different than the
control and calcium. Most flowers lived the longest in the commercial packet
treatment, especially the roses.