Postharvest Technologies for Commercial Floriculture

Book excerpt: POST HARVEST TECHNOLOGIES FOR COMMERCIAL FLORICULTURE: Commercial floriculture, which encompasses production and trade of cut flowers, foliage plants, potted plants, landscape plants, bedding plants, seed production, dried flowers and plant parts, perfumes and essential oils and natural dyes, is an emerging area in the present scenario and has been identified as one of the possible areas for diversification into a viable agri-business option. Among various aspects of floriculture, the essential oil, dried flower and cut flower industries are emerging as powerful engines for economic growth. The present work is aimed to bring out comprehensive information on relevance of post harvest technology in commercial aspects of floriculture. The book contains s giving exhausted material on quality control and standardization in the perfume and essential oils and techniques that are employed for analysis of essential oils with information on chemical constituents and sensory evaluation of essential oils. Processing techniques and quality attributes are discussed in detail. It also gives description of ornamental and aromatic plants which are sources of fragrances. Processing and preservation techniques of flowers along with using their various parts for value addition has been discusses in full detail. Evaluation of quality factors for floricultural crops gives detail information on various pre-harvest, harvest and post-harvest factors affecting the quality of floriculture crops mainly cut flowe