Vase Life Evaluation of Three Greek Tulip Species Compared with a Commercial Cultivar

Aiming at evaluating new candidate species for the cut flower market of Greece and beyond, in this study, the vase life of three Greek tulip plant species, <i>Tulipa cretica</i> ‘Hilde’ (CRH, local endemic of Crete, Greece), <i>T. clusiana</i> ‘Chrysantha’ (CLC, naturalized in Chios Island, Greece), and <i>T. australis</i> (AUS, native in the Mediterranean and Greece), was investigated in comparison to the commercial tulip hybrid Île-de-France (IDF). To this end, pre-cooled at 4 °C bulbs of the abovementioned Greek tulip plant species were bought from Dutch nurseries and grown in pots placed in unheated greenhouses located at two different climatic conditions in Northern Greece. The plants were uprooted when the flowers reached a slightly open stage. Half of the flowering stems were immediately placed into bottles with deionized water, while the rest were placed in a preservative solution containing citric acid 5% and sulfuric acid 1% and then remained under laboratory conditions until the entire tepal wilted (end of vase life). The measurements performed concerned: (a) flower stem length and flower maximum diameter, (b) fresh weight (FW) of initial stems, leaves, flowers, and bulbs and at the end of vase life, (c) flower color parameters (L, a, b, c, and H) in all treated flowers, (d) leaf chlorophyll content (SPAD values), and (e) initial and final water volume after removing the flowering stems. The aforementioned measurements showed that CRH cut flowers may exhibit consistent floral opening patterns and were associated with a long mean vase life of 5.7 days, which can be further prolonged to 6.5 days by carefully selecting a cultivation location with proper climatic conditions. The vase life of CLC cut flowers was significantly affected by the climatic parameters (temperature) of the area where the plants were cultivated. The immersion of cut flowering stems in a preservative solution with citric and sulfuric acids did not yield a notable increase in the longevity of cut flowers during the postharvest period. Moreover, this treatment did not have any significant impact on leaf chlorophyll content or flower color at the end of the flowers’ vase life. The data of this work show that cut flowers from the native species <i>T</i>. <i>cretica</i> and <i>T. clusiana</i> have satisfactory vase life, especially when plants were grown in favorable climate condition; the latter is an important criterion for their entry into the cut flower market.