Preface 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. In India, floriculture has been a time honoured and traditional activity largely for religious purposes, perfume industry and landscaping. Now, this earlier appreciation of floriculture for aesthetic value alone has slowly turned into realization of its economic potential due to globalization of Indian economy, the liberalization of global trade and above all, growing consciousness and demand for quality products. Ancient Indian literature, mythological sculptures, architectural work, tribal arts and crafts provide ample testimony to the development of floral and gardening art through the ages. Basically, flowers are classified into two categories namely, traditional or loose flowers and modern or cut flowers. The traditional flowers (marigold, jasmine, chrysanthemum, desi rose, aster, crossandra etc) are mostly used for religious purposes and various kinds of decoration and arrangements at home and public places apart from extraction of essential oils. On the other hand, cut flowers-a category of flowers with stems; are mainly used for decoration in vases, floral arrangements and in bouquet preparations. The major flowers under this category which dominate in the global trade are rose, chrysanthemum, carnation, gerbera, tulip, alstroemeria, lilium, iris etc. But there are numerous ornamental plants which also find use in floral designs and arrangements either fresh or dried due to their beautiful charming foliages. In flower trade, post harvest methods of handling of cut flowers are a rewarding subject of study. Demand for cut flower is increasing at domestic and international market. Floricultural export from India comprises fresh flowers to Europe, Japan Australia, Middle East and USA; cut foliages to Europe; dried flowers to USA, Europe, Japan, Australia and Russia. Out of these components, dried flowers constitute more then two third of floricultural export. Dried and preserved ornamental products offer a wide range of characteristics like novelty, longevity, aesthetic properties (beauty, colour and texture), and flexibility and around the year availability as compared to cut flowers. For making dried products, flowers and plant parts can be collected from wild sources or some flower crops like dahlia, marigold, woodrose, wild lilies, helichrysum, lotus pods etc. are also dried. Dried flowers constitute nearly 15% of the global floricultural business and the demand for dried flower in India is increasing at an impressive rate of 8-10 percent. In recent years, there has been rapid growth in global demand for plant based raw material for manufacturing food flavours, fragrances, perfumes, cosmetics and related products. In India, extraction of essential oil from rose and jasmine has been practised for a very long time. For centuries essential oils are known to have many applications and were used as medicaments, disinfectants, as incense and insect repellents, in cosmetics and mood stimulants. Rose oil find amazingly wide and varied applications in many major industries such as hair oil, cosmetics, cold drinks, food stuffs, soft drinks, alcoholic liquors and medicines. A significant factor for wholesaler as well as consumer in post harvest handling of cut flowers is their vase-life, which is a characteristic feature of each particular species and cultivar and is strongly dependent on pre-harvest conditions and handling after harvesting. To preserve best quality of cut flowers after harvest and to make them resistant to fluctuation in environmental conditions, treatments like conditioning, impregnation, pulsing or loading, bud opening, holding treatments, packaging, storage etc are recommended. Nearly 70% of the potential vase-life of cut flower is predetermined at harvest while post harvest factors influence 30% of the effects. The present manuscript “Post Harvest Technologies for Commercial Floriculture” is aimed to bring out comprehensive information on relevance of post harvest technology in commercial aspects of floriculture. The book contains five chapters. Chapter-1, “Introduction to the world of perfumes and essential oils” gives an exhausted review of quality control and standardization in the perfume and essential oil industry and techniques that are employed for analysis of essential oils. The chapter also includes chemical constitutes and sensory evaluation of essential oil. Chaper-2, “Perfume and perfume based industry-an overview” highlights the historical events in perfume and fragrances. Types of fragrance oils and future of the industry are also discussed. Chapter-3 “Fragrance from flowers and plant parts” lists fragrant extract sources of botanical origin. Processing techniques and quality attributes are discussed in detail. It also gives description of some ornamental and aromatic plants which are sources of fragrances. However, Processing of rose, marigold and jasmine have been discussed in detail. Chapter-4, “Preserving flowers and plant parts for value addition” gives detail review of preservation techniques. Bleaching, dyeing processes has also been discussed. This chapter also through light on processing of ornamental grasses, post harvest management of dried flowers and guidelines for suitable flowers and plant species used in floral craft, flower arrangements etc. Chapter-5, “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 flowers. However, quality evaluation of chrysanthemum, carnation, gladiolus and alstroemeria has been discussed in detail. We take this rare opportunity to express our deep sense of heartfelt gratitude to our dignified teacher Late Professor S P Dhall for his personal inspiration and constant encouragement during compilation of this manuscript and will remain indebted for his selfless encouragement and inpeccable guidence that we got whenever needed. We also sincerely acknowledge the encouragement and guidance received from Professor SPS Guleria (Retired Head, Department of Postharvest technology, Dr YS Parmar, University of Horticulture and Forestry, Solan) and Professor SK Chopra (Retired, Head from the same Institute). The contribution of all those whose material has been used is gratefully acknowledged. We are thankful to the staff of New India Publishing Agency (NIPA) for their efforts in producing this publication. Our thanks are due to Mrs Rajni Grewal for keeping everything flying when typing the manuscript painstakingly well in time and to Sh Rattan Grewal for his individual support for preparing this manuscript. This book will help all and serve as a comprehensive guide to those who want to opt Floriculture as a business. It is earnestly hoped that the students of horticulture (fruit science, vegetable science, floriculture and post harvest technology) will find this book quite useful. Suggestions for further improvement are invited and will be immensely acknowledged.

1.1 Importance Perfumes, essential oils and aroma are some of the products which indicate religious values, living standards, personality development for personal use and adornment from years back. The Vedic literatures also indicate the presence of perfumes and aromatics and were used for religious purposes as well as medicinal purposes. The word perfume has been used today to describe scented mixtures and is derived from the Latin word, “per fumum”, meaning through smoke. Perfumery has been one of the Indian arts and was a famous centre for perfume and perfume products. The essential oil means a class of volatile odoriferous oils, obtained from raw material of botanical source that impart the plant odour and other characteristic properties derived through distillation (usually with water or steam) or expression and obtained in the form of an oily liquid. The oils extracted through expression are some time called “Expression oils”. The aromatic substances being used from the Vedic period are defined as those plants which possess odoriferous steam volatile constituent’s (essential oil) in them. Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and USA are the major producers of aromatic materials. China is becoming increasingly important as a primary source and a very large quantity of aromatics and flowers as raw material is available. European Union and Switzerland are the main world markets for aromatics and also has established as a largest consumer of essential oils. The world’s largest importer of aromatic materials is the USA followed by Japan. The latter accounts for about 10% of world demand especially for lemon, clove, orange, peppermint and cedar wood oil. India exports essential oils of lemongrass, mint, sandalwood, palmarosa, cardamom, ginger and eucalyptus in adequate quantity under AGMARK certification. But, for a better export quality there is a need to study the customer requirements, quality assurance and standards to keep pace with International market, Total Quality Management (TQM) through adulteration detection and modern analysis techniques with economic marketing channels. India possesses a number of resources as plant parts, ample land and varied climatic conditions with low production costs but the essential oil producers need to study the customer needs for a regular supply of best quality products at a competitive rates. Today, second important factor for successful competition is the quality assurance. The consumers, these days, are very much aware about the quality and safety of using perfumes, essential oils and other pharmaceutical products. The third most important point is the packaging which attracts the consumers most of the times. Proper packaging along with an attractive label is always a plus point for the marketing of any product. Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) and Good Manfacturing Practices (GMP’s) are the quality assurance systems which continuously controls and regulate the quality production of commodities, needs strict enforcement. ISO 9000, TQM and ISO 14000 series are the some of quality management organizations, working for the development of quality standards.

2.1 Introduction Perfumery, the art of making perfumes, began in ancient Egypt but was developed and further refined by the Romans and the Arabs. The history of perfume began in antiquity. The word perfume is used today to describe scented mixtures and is derived from the Latin word, “per fumum”, meaning through smoke. Although perfume and perfumery also existed in East Asia, much of its fragrances are incense based. The world’s first recorded perfume maker Tapputi was mentioned in a Cuneiform tablet from the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia. Perfume and perfumery also existed in India. The earliest distillation of Attar was mentioned in the Hindu Ayurvedic Charaka Samhita. The Bible describes a sacred perfume, consisting of liquid myrrh, fragrant cinnamon and cassia. In Islamic culture, perfume usage has been documented as far back as the 6th century and its usage is considered a religious duty. Al-Kindi in the 9th century wrote a book on perfumes entitled ‘Book of the Chemistry of Perfume and Distillations’ that has more than hundred recipes for fragrant oils, salves, aromatic waters and substitutes or imitations of costly drugs.

3.1 Introduction Flower and plant part based perfumes are receiving special attention at this modern age of civilization. With pre-eminent senses of smell or taste, a large brain affording a superior intellect, would lead to the use of these abilities to improve the environment, the flavour of food and the smell of the surroundings. In fragrance industry, essential oil is a generic term given to all fragrant extracts such as essential oils, absolutes, resinoids, concretes etc. Since antiquity, flowers and plant parts have been used as flavours for food, for religious rites, for beautification of homes and gardens, as incence and insect repellent, in cosmetics and personal adornment and in medicine. Fragrance compositions are used with the purpose to affect customers through their sense of smell and the job of composing fragrances is left upto an expert known as “Perfumer”. Despite continuing invention of synthetic fragrant extracts, natural essential oils still remain the most important part of fine fragrance. Essential oils are so aromatic and are the focus of the fragrance industry. The content of a pure essential oil product gives it an unmistakable aromatic and healing quality. Nature has always provided us with food, medicine and fibre for clothing that we need to survive. Sometime a walk in the woods, a day spent swimming in Local River or lake or a beautiful sunset can lift a person’s spirit and give them a new outlook. The aroma of a pure essential oil can do the same. Flavour and fragrance have now become every day necessities and their demand is constantly increasing across the world. Products from different extraction methods are known under different names even though their basic materials are the same. For instance, orange blossom from citrus aurantium on solvent extraction produces “orange blossom absolute” but that of steam distilled produces “Neroli oil”.

4.1 Overview of Concept and Science Preserving flowers and plant parts has been a form of artistic expression that was very popular in Victorian ages. Now, this process is moving from an art to a highly interdisciplinary science and has become a major economic activity on a global scale. Because, dry decorative products have been globally accepted as natural, eco-friendly, long lasting and inexpensive as compare to fresh flowers and plant parts, which are perishable and delicate in nature. These perishables cannot retain their fresh like appearance and beauty for several months and it becomes prodigious job to maintain these qualities. Even with preservatives, the vase life of fresh cut flowers has been prolonged to an extent of 40 per cent only. Hence, for those who want the beauty of nature around them in the form of flowers but on a more permanent basis dried flowers are a solution. Domain of Dried Flowers Anything from botanicals such as stems, twigs, branches, bark, leaves/ foliage, flowers, thorns/ spines, fruits, cones, seeds, roots; and minor forest products like lichens, fleshy fungi, mosses, selleginnela ferns etc. in a dried form come under the domain of dry flowers. Until a few years ago dried flowers were popular in the West with very few homes in India opting for them. But, today Indian homes have taken to dried flowers in their many forms and shapes like duck to water. There are different segments which are covered under dried flowers (Table 1).

5.1 Introduction Quality is one of the major positioning tools of the commodity for marketability, profitability and for consumer satisfaction. The relative importance of each quality component depends upon the commodity and its intended use and varies among growers, handlers and consumers. To growers a given commodity must have high yield and good appearance and must withstand long distance transportation to market whereas, appearance of quality and longevity is important from the point of view of wholesale and retail marketers. Terms commonly used in measurement of keeping quality of cut flowers are longevity, shelf-life, vase-life, and lasting quality. In addition to these, several criteria have been used for evaluation of post harvest flower quality like:

Index A Abies alba 36 Abscission 240, 243, 278, 279, 299, 300, 345, 347, 348, 351, 356, 347 Absolute 14, 25, 26, 27, 44, 62, 63, 64, 66, 87, 89, 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 118, 131, 132 Acacia 26, 36, 80, 81, 82, 137, 198, 199, 215, 284 Acetylation 3, 69, 103, 114, 119 Acid value 3, 69, 103, 113, 119 Acidity (pH) 315, 331 Acorus calamus 14, 34, 36 Agave 193, 247 Aging 9, 239, 240, 308, 318 Alcoholic extracts 26 Alcohols 3, 6, 37, 52, 62, 72, 73, 83, 85, 114 Aldehydes 22, 62, 70, 72, 74, 85, 86, 92, 103, 114