Crop Res. 41 (1, 2 & 3) : 135-138 (2011) Printed in India Effect of dry storage on biochemical changes of chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.) flowers cv. Shanti SURESH KUMAR, B. S. BENIWAL*, J. K. SANDOOJA AND MAHESH CHOUDHARY Department of Horticulture CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India *(e-mail : beniwalbs@hau.ernet.in) (Received : March, 2011) ABSTRACT The effect of packaging material and storage environments on vase life of flowers of chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.) cv. Shanti was carried out during the year 2007-08 at the Farm of the Department of Horticulture, CCSHAU, Hisar (Haryana). The flowers were packed in four packaging materials, namely, cling film, polyethylene, cellophane paper and corrugated card boxes and stored under three different storage environments i. e. ambient temperature, zero energy cool chamber and cold storage at 10 o C for a period of one, two and three days. The various biochemical changes having major impact on vase life such as total sugar, reducing sugar and non-reducing sugar showed least reduction in polyethylene packs and cold storage environment at 10 o C. Key words : Chrysanthemum, dry storage, packaging material INTRODUCTION As chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.) is popularly called the “Queen of the East” and has admirers and enthusiasts all over the world. It belongs to the family Asteraceae and recognized as an important flower crop in many countries and widely grown in open fields in India for loose flowers. It is often described as the “Autumn Queen ” as it blooms in the months of November-December. Chrysanthemum is the national flower of Japan and it occupies third rank in the international cut flower trade next to carnation and rose. In northern parts of our country, this flower is mostly grown in farmer’s fields and marketed as loose flowers for garlands and other uses. The packaging is an important step in value addition for enhancing of the vase life of the flowers and for better marketing. However, there is no information regarding the proper cost effective material for packaging of this flower. Hence, the present investigations were carried out with the objective to study the effect of packaging and storage environment on quality and vase life of chrysanthemum cv. Shanti. MATERIALS AND METHODS The present investigation was carried out at the experimental orchard of the Department of Horticulture, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar during 2007- 08. The harvested cut flowers were packed in different packaging materials viz., cling film, polyethylene, cellophane paper and corrugated card boxes. After packaging, they were stored in three storage environments i. e. ambient temperature, zero energy cool chamber and cold storage at 10 o C ambient storage. The cut flowers were evaluated for total sugars, reducing sugars, non-reducing sugars and physiological loss in weight. The data were recorded for various parameters and the values were subjected to statistical analysis using complete randomized design. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Physiological Loss in Weight The physiological loss in weight of chrysanthemum cut flowers varied from 0.25 to 39.83% among different treatments of packaging and storage environments (Table 1). The minimum weight loss of 0.25% was observed in all types of wrappings after 24 h and maximum after 72 h. This is obvious as with increase in storage period, there is increase in PLW. Among the different storage environments, minimum PLW was observed