>> Murray,
>> There are a host of articles on how to prolong vase life,
> particularly in carnations. Most of these are in the
> horitculture journals. Fundamentally, blocking ethylene
> production and/or ethylene responses is one aspect,
> controlling the proliferation of microorganisms is a second,
> maintaining decent transpiration flow is a third, and
> providing substrate (sucrose etc) is a fourth. There
> may be others, but these top the list in my opinion.
> There are good articles on each of these almost every
> year.
>> ross
>Ross,
I enjoyed your answer to this, and so many other of your responses. I
am curious about item 4 - providing sucrose. I read this somewhere and
put it in the botany book I wrote for the course I teach here. When I
sent the book out for review, the reviewer jumped all over me, saying that
the sucrose would encourage the growth of bacteria. We have ignored the
advice in our lab experiments, but we really haven't seen any differences
in those with sucrose and those with none. Can you give any specific
advice on concentration? Some have suggested putting aspirin with it to
prevent bacteria. Sorry I'm not looking for this myself in the
horticulture journals, but the nearest library with horticulture journals
is at least 100 miles away (more likely 400) - or in some unknown person's
basement.
Thank you,
Janice
***********************************
Janice M. Glime, Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Michigan Technological University
Houghton, MI 49931-1295
jmglime at mtu.edu
906-487-2546
FAX 906-487-3167
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