Can Phenotyping for Water Balance Improve Breeding for Vase Life?

Water deficit is a main cause for early wilting of cut flowers during vase life. To prevent water deficit, water uptake from the vase should compensate transpiration. Our goal is to identify parameters characterizing water balance that explain genotypic differences in vase life. This allows more precise phenotyping of vase life related traits. In two independent experiments 19 chrysanthemum genotypes were characterized for three water balance parameters during their vase life: the maximum weight gain (MWG; maximum weight increase after placement in water) and weight loss rate (WLR; % of weight loss per time unit after MWG is reached), which together explain time to negative water balance (tW