Improvement in Quality Management of Ornamentals

摘要

How do we address the problem of understanding the positive or negative effects of the postharvest performance of the whole chain from production of plant to point of sale to the costumer? The question is a central part in a Danish research project that focuses on studying the correlation between controlled stresses as a part of the production strategy for improving the postharvest performance (external and internal quality). A series of experiments have been made testing different climate conditions and plant species and the results indicate that even severe stress conditions and mismanagement during production have surprisingly small effect on the postharvest quality compared to that in the shipping chain. To generate further information plants from commercial nurseries were subjected to forced keeping quality tests and climate data analysed in relation to post-harvest performance. A novel system for keeping quality has been made, where observations are entered into a relational database using a tablet PC. The system provides a flexible platform, and facilitates the analysis of the postharvest performance.