Avaliação de diferentes métodos de conservação de hastes florais de girassol

Abstract

Floriculture is an economic sector that is constantly growing, as well as having outstanding social and cultural importance. One of the segments of this sector is cut flowers. Cut flowers can be sold fresh, however, in this way, they have some disadvantages such as their very short shelf life and seasonality of supply. Therefore, drying the flowers is an alternative to extend their durability. For the flower to have commercial value after the drying process, it must maintain characteristics such as shape, color and size that are minimally altered. Another alternative to maintaining the commercial characteristics of a floral stem is the use of chemical compounds to slow down physiological processes that cause its deterioration. Thus, this work aimed to evaluate the efficiency of different preservative solutions and drying in silica gel in extending the shelf life of sunflower flower stems. Two trials were carried out with the sunflower cultivar Sol Vermelho. In the first test, ten 50 cm cut flowers were distributed in containers containing the treatments: distilled water, silver nitrate (20 mg/L), sucrose (4%) and gibberellic acid (50 mg/L). The quality of the stems was evaluated daily using a rating scale. Gibberellic acid resulted in higher scores during 2 days of the experiment, suggesting the need to investigate other concentrations to better understand its impact on stem preservation. However, sucrose and silver nitrate did not show significant effects in prolonging the longevity of the stems, at the concentrations tested. In test 2, 24 sunflower flowers were dried in a container containing silica gel, divided into two treatments (perforated in the central disc and not perforated). Disc diameter, capitulum diameter and floral stem mass were evaluated every 12 h. There was no statistical difference between treatments in sunflower flowers dried for 72 h. Both silica gel drying with perforated and non-perforated discs were effective, although there were differences throughout the process. These findings contribute to knowledge about the conservation and drying of sunflower floral stems, paving the way for future research and improvements in floriculture practice.