Soil science

1. ENTERING THE MARKET IS NOT EASY
EASY EASY ?????
ART HAS NO BOUNDERIES LIKE WISE
FLOWERS ALSO HAVE NO BOUNDERIES
THEY CAN ENTER ANY HEART AND
PART OF THE WORLD

2. QUALITY
The quality of flowers, which reaches the final consumer, depends
on the pre-harvest and post-harvest handling.

3. Post harvest losses….
Minimise the Loss
to become Boss
.

4. Introduction
17/11/2018 4
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5. To make sure that all our efforts of producing a
quality fresh cut is realized by the consumer !!
Quality is the pillar for creating value and customer
satisfaction
Why post harvest handling ?

6. Table: Worldwide total area in major greenhouse production
(Kacira , 2011)

7. APEDA , 2014

8. Prolonging the post-harvest life is essential to
assure more life of flowers.
For prolonging vase life, we should study about the
pre-harvest, harvest and post-harvest factors of
flower crops that ultimately affects the flower life.
There are a series of steps involved to prepare
flowers for market after harvesting known as post-
harvest handling.
These steps include: Harvesting, Conditioning,
Pre-cooling, Pulsing, Grading, Bunching,
Wrapping, Packaging, Storage, Transport and
Sale.

9. Pre-harvest factors affecting flower longevity
•Genetic or inherent makeup
•Environmental factors
(Light, Temperature, Humidity, Season,
Ethylene ,Carbon dioxide, Pests and Stage of
maturity)
Nutrition

10. •Time
•Method of harvesting
•Stage of harvesting
Harvest factors affecting flower longevity

11. •Temperature
•Humidity
•Water relations
•Conditioning
•Pre-cooling
•Floral preservative
Post-harvest factors affecting vase life

12. Factors affecting postharvest longevity and
quality of cut flowers
 Food depletion
 Maturation and ageing
 Wilting
 Bruising and crushing
 Ethylene
 Temperature
 Bacterial and Fungal infections

14. Flow chart of Post harvest
Harvest
Conditioning
Precooling
Pulsing
Grading
Bunching
Wrapping
Packaging
Storaging
Transport and Sale

15. HARVESTING
 Flowers should always be harvested at an optimum
stage of maturity. Too immature buds do not open
whereas over mature ones wither quickly.
 At no time should harvested flowers be placed
on the ground because of the danger of
contaminating the flowers with disease organisms.

17. HARVESTING

18. Conditioning/Hardening
• Flowers are kept loosely in big container of
water so that air circulates around stem.
• Main purpose of conditioning is to restore
turgidity of cut flowers.
• Can be done in dark so that stomata closure
reducing amount of water loss and
transpiration.
• Demineralised water+germicides+acidified
with citric acid.

19. .
Remove excess field heat either by hydro cooling or
refrigeration.
Time gap between harvest and pre cooling should be as
short as possible. It brings down the respiration rate.

20. Nourish flower to prolong perish

21. PULSING
 Harvested flowers for a relatively short time kept in a solution
specially formulated to extend their storage and vase life.
 Pulsing solutions are used to provide additional sugar
(gladiolus, tuberose, hybrid statice), to extend the life of ethylene-
sensitive flowers (carnation, delphinium, gypsophila).
 Sucrose is the main ingredient of pulsing solutions providing
additional sugar, and the proper concentration ranges from 2 to 20%,
depending on the crop.

22. Types of floral preservatives

23. --+
GRADING
Grading refers to categorization of flowers on the
basis of their quality.
Mostly grading is done on the basis of appearance,
harvesting maturity, blemishes or injuries due to
disease, attack of insects or pests, colour and size of
the bud, straightness
While grading care should be taken to discard the
bruised, broken, diseased and insect damaged flowers.

24. GRADING

25. BUNCHING
 The flowers should be bunched after cutting the uniform stem
length on the marked grading table.
 The cut of the stems should be made with the sharp and
clean cutter.
 Bunches should be tied firmly with the rubber bands flowers are
normally bunched in Group of 10, 12 and 25 are common for
 Each bunch is made up of the same size, weight or quality of
blooms.

26. Bunching

27.  Materials used for sleeving include paper (waxed or unwaxed),
corrugated card (smooth side towards the flowers) and
polyethylene (perforated, unperforated and blister).
SLEEVING

28. PACKING
Package ensures quality maintenance during
transport and storage.
Package standards vary with flower crops, cultivars,
mode of transport, storage and market outlet to meet the
regulation of importing countries.
The inner layer of package should also provide
cushioning effect to the flowers. Some of the packaging
material commonly used are cellophane paper,
newspaper, fluted card board paper,
polypropylene,polyethylene, craft paper and tissue paper
either in the form of sleeves, cones, cups or simple
wrapping over flowers. Corrugated cardboard boxes are
commonly used for packaging of flowers.

29. Maintain long storage life & keeping quality
by lowering the rate of transpiration, respiration and cell
division during transportation and storage.
Protects from physical damage.
Storage friendly & users friendly.
Ecofriendly.
Should be recyclable .
Moisture resistant .
Principles of packaging

30. corrugated card

31. The typical box sizes for various flowers are given as below

32. Corrugated FiberBoard Box
The most suitable packaging material for cut flowers
since they have isothermic properties.

33. PACKAGING MATERIALS
CFB Box
Carnation packing
Gerbera packing
Polythene

34. STORAGE
Flowers can be stored for a longer period at low temperature.
Refrigerated storage: Most widely used method of storage of
cut flowers. There are two types
(a) Wet storage and (b) dry storage.
Wet storage :
Flowers stored with their bases dipped in water or preservative
solution
Good for short duration, day to day handling
Stored at a temperature at 2-40C
Dry storage :
Flowers sealed in plastic bags are stored to prevent loss of
moisture.
More laborious but hold the flowers for longer duration.
Pre-cooling and pulsing before dry storage is important.
Stored at 0.5 to 1.0 0C is ideal for most flowers

36. The flowers should be transported at an optimal low temperature.
Flower should be transported in corrugated cardboard boxes. The
flowers which are sensitive to ethylene, ethylene scrubbers containing
KMnO4 (Potassium permanganate) should be added to those boxes.
Shipment of flowers is usually done by truck, air and sea. For short
distance and time period shorter than 20 hr, cut flowers may be
transported in insulated trucks without refrigeration after precooling
and proper packing.
Some of the flower crops show yellowing during transportation due to
lack of light, therefore there should be a provision of light inside the
transporting vehicle.

37. MARKETING
For exploring the local market the requirement are:
According to demand in local market.
For export market :
Following of the peak dates during the year:
i. New year day
ii. Valentine day
iii. Labour day
iv. Mothers day
v. Christmas day

38. All the factors that affect post-harvest life of a
flower should managed properly to promote
the vase life of flowers.
CONCLUSION

39. 39
Thank you…