POSTHARVEST HANDLING OF 'CUT RENAISSANCE', 'WINTER ROSE EARLY' AND 'JESTER' POINSETTIAS

Much work has been previously done on Euphorbia ‘Renaissance Red’ as a cut flower grown for its large inflorescence of curly red bracts. In the current studies ‘Renaissance Marble’, ‘Renaissance Peppermint’, and ‘Renaissance Pink’ had a consumer vase life of 20.1 to 35.0 days and a wholesale vase life of 5.8 to 11.3 days, which was comparable to ‘Renaissance Red’ when flowers were harvested and placed in vases filled with deionized water. ‘Renaissance Pink’ tolerated dry storage in floral boxes and/or 24-hours of 2°C storage, but ‘Renaissance Marble’ vase life was reduced by storage in water or 2°C storage. For ‘Renaissance Peppermint’ 2°C storage reduced the vase life; however, consumer vase life was still 16.6 to 19.7 days when foliage was removed. While Winter Rose Early (WRE) cultivars produced up to 1.6 more stems per pot than ‘Renaissance Peppermint’ and ‘Renaissance Red’ cultivars, the WRE stems were much shorter than the Renaissance stems. All of the WRE cultivars had a consumer vase life of at least 22 days in any of the treatments, which was not affected by storage temperature, storage conditions, or foliage removal. Wholesale vase life for all three cultivars ranged from 8.3 to 14.0 days and was generally reduced if the stems had leaves. When stored at 20°C for 24 hours in water, ‘Jester Red’ had the longest consumer vase life of the Jester cultivars, 23.9 to 30.0 days, while ‘Jester Marble’ and ‘Jester Pink’ had a shorter vase life of only 10.1 to 16.5 days. Wholesale vase life was much shorter for all three cultivars and varied from 2.0 to 4.8 days. Jester cultivars and ‘Renaissance Red’ flowers did not tolerate 2 or 4 weeks of 10°C dry storage. Jester and WRE cultivars were sensitive to chilling damage at 2°C.