الفهرس 
REVIEW OF LITERATUREOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Among horticultural exports, cut flowers have significantly been one of the most important sources of National Income in many countries. Egypt with its suitable environmental conditions can be an excellent source wich has a great advantage in producing cut flowers for either local markets or exports.
Through the marketing channel, there is enormous loss in value of cut flowers of the farm value. Although there has been a considerable progress in research in storage life of flowers, very little information is available about the physiological response of specific flowers to refrigerated storage. It has been reported that senescence process continues during cold storage resulting in shortened vase life. Not only chemicals are employed in preparing holding solutions, but also chemicals are in use during conditioning, pulsing and for making bud opening solutions.
The relatively short vase life period of the post harvest life of the cut flowers, is considered to be one of the most important limiting factors that affect cut flower marketing.
Marketing and exporting of cut flowers involves major changes in supply and demand, due to heavy demand for holiday’s time. Storage of the commercial ornamental cut flowers can be very important in marketing.
Dry cool storage can be helpful to hold the flowers for a longer duration. Pulsing of flowers before storage helps to improve post storage life of the flowers (Arora and Singh, 2002).
Cold storage facilitates the preservation of commodities and aims at maintenance of the harvested cut flowers in ‘fresh’ condition, markedly affecting the consumer acceptability thus, rendering storage as an important procedure in supply and demand regulation.
One of the most important exports donations of ornamental in Egypt is Solidago which is the sixest export crop. Solidago canadensis, L. or goldenrod (Fig.1) is now a mainstream cut flower, produced in fields and greenhouses as well, wherever cut flowers are grown. Florists and designers incorporate them in mixed bouquets and arrangements. Plants exhibit ease of culture, high yield, and excellent vase life (Armitage and Laushman 2003).
Golden rod is a rhizomatous perennial (Weber and Jakobs, 2005) which belongs to the family of Asteraceae. The genus name from the Latin solidus meaning whole, referring to its traditional healing properties, there are about 120 species of Solidago. Its native origin is North America from Arizona, Texas and Florida in the South to Nova Scotia in the North (Scoggan, 1979 and Semple, 1992).
Solidago canadensis has been introduced into Europe in the 17th century (, Schmid and Weiner, 1993 and Weber and Schmid 1993). This taxon presently ranges from Italy to southern Scandinavia in the North and from Ireland to Russia in the East (Weber, 2000) and is considered to be one of the most aggressive invading species in Europe (Zwِlfer, 1976 and Weber and Schmid 1993). Moreover, the species has also been introduced to Asia and Australia (Weber, 2000).
S. canadensis ”Tara” now accounts for nearly 100 % of the Dutch imports of all Solidago cultivars since it seemed more robust than most other cultivars and now lies the sixth in the import ranking which is excellent for a one variety, one coloure flower (Partwee, 2000). The crop looked much easier and highly profitable for the Egyptian growers under open-field conditions.
With increasing the worldwide market demand for golden rods, studies to improve cultural techniques and flowering of these plants have been developed. Besides, nutrition, hormonal application, photoperiod, temperature requirements and postharvest treatments have been investigated. There has been a great deal of progress in the Netherlands and many other countries in breeding flowering hybrids with a good vase life for the international cut flower trade.
Harvest stage may affect the post harvest quality, Brahmankar et al., (2005) found that, harvesting at less advanced stages recorded higher panicle weight, delayed senescence and enhanced vase life along with good quality maintenance. The unopen stage and partially open stage exhibited excellent flower quality with excellent flower colour maintenance, turgidity and freshness.
The aims of the present study were to:
1- Determine the optimum harvest stage of Solidago cut flowers with highest post harvest quality after cold storage periods.
2- Determine the effectiveness of some chemical materials as preservation treatments added before storage period to reduce flower senescence and increas vase life during long term storage.
3- Determine the effective concentrations among the chemicals used in the present investigation to produce a better quality cut flower with longer vase life.
4- Study the effect of dry storage period on Solidago flowers.