الملخص الإنجليزي
The cut flower sector in Oman is no less important than the rest of the agricultural
sectors, but unfortunately, there is no or very little research so far on this sector has
been conducted. Therefore, this study was initiated to evaluate the growth and yield
performance of two species of commercial cut flowers (geranium and carnation) under
contrasting growing conditions. During this research study, three different sets of
experiments were performed. The first experiment was the cultivation of two types of
cut flowers geranium and carnation in two contrasting environments, an airconditioned greenhouse equipped with artificial lighting, and a traditional evaporative
cooling system greenhouse with natural lighting. In this experiment, two types of
irrigation water were used, freshwater and tertiary treated wastewater. The experiment
data was collected at two stages, the vegetative growth stage, and the flowering stage.
During the experiment, the required data were collected on the effect of water type and
the nature of the agricultural growing environment on plant morphology, physiology,
and flowering. It is concluded that the traditional evaporative cooling system
greenhouse was the best in the cultivation of cut flowers and there were no statistically
significant differences recorded between the types of water used. The second
experiment was using cut flowers from the first experiment to find out the vase life
longevity of the flowers when placed in a container with some preservative solutions.
Two different solutions with three different concentrations were used. The first
solution was the moringa leaf extract at concentrations of 30, 60, and 90%, and the
second solution was boric acid at concentrations of 50, 100, and 150 mg L-1
. It is
concluded that the Indian Shua (moringa) solution with a concentration of 30 percent
was the best, and the boric acid solution at a concentration of 100 mg L-1 performed
better compared to other treatments. The third experiment was based on a
questionnaire-based survey conducted throughout the Sultanate of Oman, examining
the extent of citizens' desire to buy cut flowers for various occasions. A total of 907
responses were collected and it showed that 80% of the respondents were willing to
buy cut the flowers. In conclusion, the cut flowers can be grown in Oman with high
demand, and with the use of particularly traditional evaporative greenhouses
conditions and treated wastewater.
