Post Harvest Handling of Cut Flowers

Flowers are the most beautiful creation of the earth. Flowers symbolize beauty, purity, peace, love affection and honesty. Flowers have been associated with Indian art and culture from the time immemorial starting with the offering of flowers during worship by the ancientRishis (sages). Floriculture has emerged as a viable diversification option in the agri-business. It is a rapidly expanding dynamic industry recording a growth rate of more than 15 per cent per annum in the last two decades. Rapid urbanization, increased income levels and changes in social values resulted in increase of domestic market both for modern (cut flowers) as well as traditional (loose flowers) flowers significantly. At present, the area under flower crops in India is 306000 ha with a production of 1840000 MT of loose flowers and 548000 MT of cut flowers (NHB Indian Horticulture Database 2014-2015).