Tulip flower bulbs - harvesting and storage

Tulip bulbs harvesting

Flowers are harvested when the bud is 50% coloured. It is done at the bulb tip by secateur or by pulling the plant along with bulb. It is important to allow one or two leaves remain on the plant to ensure continued bulb growth.

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Vase life of Tulip cut flowers depends on varieties, standard condition of temperature and humidity. It varies between 5-11 days. Flowers harvested along with bulb can be stored for 5-14 days longer at 0 degrees celsius with high humidity. Flowers can be wrapped & stored in water for immediate use. For short term dry storage, it is wrapped in horizontal position at 0-20 degrees celsius.

When Tulips are used for flower arrangement or sale, they must be hardened at room temperature by keeping them in water; so that they can uptake water otherwise they will not stand straight.

Harvesting and storage of bulbs

Tulip bulbs are lifted after complete senescence of the aerial parts; the tunic is then partly or completely brown. During lifting, it is important that the bulbs are handled gently to avoid damage. After lifting wash the bulb and remove the remains of mother bulb, roots and old stem. Drying is done in partial shade to avoid sun scorch in sunny weather. Tulips have only a single tunic; over drying will result in shedding their tunics, so it is dried at ambient temperatures and at 65-70 % R.H.

Storage (Forcing) of Tulip bulbs

For uniform and proper flowering, the bulbs are kept in controlled room temperature to satisfy the cold requirement, which is known as forcing. To avoid flowering failures, bulb should reach the gynoecium stage (called ‘G’stage-gynoecium clearly visible on dissection of bulbs) before kept for forcing. Bulbs are stored at 5oc for 9-12 weeks and 9-10 o c for 2 weeks, when root initiation takes place. The R.H. of cold stored should be maintained at 75 %.