Caracterization and post-harvest
conservation of Alpinia purpurata
Vieill. Schum.
The market of tropical flowers is expanding.
Therefore the marketing of red ginger inflorescence
(Alpinia purpurata) is also increasing. In Brazil there
is not much knowledge about postharvest of tropical
flowers, considering this, the aim of this research was
to develop methods of conservation of red ginger
inflorescence, a tropical flower that has being introduced
in the market without prior knowledge of
postharvest. One hundred inflorescence were used
in the beginning of this work, after analyzing the
characteristics of this plant the results were used to
evaluate the quality of the inflorescence and to indicate
standards of this flower. The inflorescence was
submitted for 24 hours to different solutions with
sucrose (0, 1, 2, 4 %) and citric acid (200 ppm) and
after this, the best solution was associated to
brassinolide or spray of benziladenine (6BA). The
data suggest that for the conservation of Alpinia
purpurata it is applied : 200 ppm of 6BA before
dipping in solution of 1% of sucrose plus 200 ppm
of citric acid for 24 hours.