Pages: 14-18

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Herbal essences extracted from medicinal plants as well as the materials produced in nanotechnology such as nanosilver and nanocopper having minimum environmental danger. Therefore, an experiment was conducted in order to assess the effects of silver nanoparticles, nanocopper, eucalyptus and thyme essence along with sucrose on catalase and Super oxide dismutase of rose cut flowers. In this experiment, interaction effects of nanosilver (2, 4 and 6 ppm), eucalyptus (25, 50 and 100 ppm), nanocopper (2, 4 and 6 ppm) and thyme (50, 100 and 150 ppm) on variation of these enzymes were evaluated. For this reason, factorial experiment based on completely randomized design with three replications was used. Distilled water and sucrose 3% were used as control. Flowers were excised from maternal stock in bud stage and then transported to laboratory of Islamic Azad University of Khorasgan Branch. Additional leaf and blades were removed from lower part of stem. All cut branches were equaled to 40 cm in long. Analysis of variance showed significant difference among treatments, times and interaction effects between them for catalase and superoxide dismutase activity. The highest catalase activity was observed in the treatments; NS 4E100, NS 6E1, NS 6E2, NS 6E3. For superoxide dismutase the highest activity was revealed in the NS 4E100, NS 6E1, NS 6E2, NS 6E treatments. In conclusion, higher activity of catalase and superoxide dismutase enzymes caused vase life increasing through microbial infection reduction and xylem clogging. Increasingly, the highest concentrations of nanosilver, essences as well as first and second levels of nanocopper produced maximum activity of these enzymes. Furthermore, significant correlation was observed between vase life and activity of these enzymes so measurement of such enzymes are one of the best procedure to determine higher vase life in rose cut flowers.