Reducing browning and keeping quality of narcissus (Narcissus tazetta L. cv. ‘Shahla’) cut flowers using gamma amino butyric acid

Narcissus is one of the bulbous cut flowers that has attracted the attention of customers due to its beauty and fragrance, however its short vase life and rapid wilting of the petals are the factors limiting the demand for this flower. To improve the postharvest quality of narcissus cut flowers, the flowers were harvested from narcissus farms in Khafr district, Jahrom city located in the southeast of Fars and transferred to the postharvest laboratory with paper coatings; then placed in containers containing gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) (1 and 5 mM), distilled water and 2% sucrose. Distilled water and 2% sucrose were considered as controls. Factors such as membrane stability index, polyphenol oxidase activity, petal browning intensity, flower quality and stem chlorophyll during 9 days of storage were evaluated. The concentration of 1 mM GABA significantly maintained the quality of the flowers. The lowest stability index was observed in the distilled water control treatment. The treated flowers with 1 mM GABA showed significantly less browning intensity than distilled water and sucrose controls. No significant difference was observed between the chlorophyll content of control and GABA treated samples.