Effect of Some Plant Growth Regulators on Delay Leaf Senescence and Increasing Vase Life of Alstroemeria Cut Flowers (Alstroemeria Hybrida Cv. Fortaleza)

Alstroemeria is one of the most beautiful cut flowers in the world that has allocated major part of cut flowers exports to itself. One of the main problems in the trade this flowers is a premature yellowing of the foliage. Therefore, the present study was designed to investigate increasing the vase life and delay of leaf yellowing Alstroemeria cut flowers cultivar "Fortaleza". The experiment was conducted in split plot based on completely randomized design with three replicates. Flower branches have treated with solutions containing zero, 25, 50, 75 and 100 mg/l of gibberelic acid (GA3) or benzyl adenine (BA) for 24 hours. During the testing, the effect of treatments was evaluated by recording traits related to the primary florets, leaves and inflorescence whole. The results showed that, GA3 treatments had far more effective on improving physico chemical characteristics, delaying leaf yellowing and flower longevity than BA concentrations. According to this results; gibberellic acid treatments, especially the concentration 50 mg/l can be introduced as a short-term treatment for retention of chlorophyll, delaying leaf senescence and enhancing the vase life of Alstroemeria cut flowers.