Total phenols and antioxidant capacity estimated with DPPH/ABTS assays in roses on preservative solutions

Abstract

Rose stems ‘Freedom’were evaluated in two preservative solutions: 8-hydroxyquinoline citrate (HQC) and Chrysal CLEAR® Professional 2 T-bag (CHRYSAL) in a pulse of 24 h at room temperature (24 ± 2 °C, 75% HR) and water as control. A completely randomized design with four replications was used; the experimental unit was a flower stem. Vase life, total phenolic content with the colorimetric method Folin-Ciocalteauy, total antioxidant capacity (caT) with DPPH and ABTS assays in both leaf and petal was evaluated. ANOVA and simple correlations between caT and content of phenols and between both assays was made. The results show that preservative solutions promote an increase in caT and total phenolic content in leaf, but not in petal. The leaves of the f lowering stems treated with CHRYSAL had the highest contents of total phenols and caT, while control the lowest. The average vase life was 13, 11 and 9 days for those treated with CHRYSAL, HQC and control, respectively. The total phenolic content showed a strong positive relation (α ≥0.01) with caT: 0.87 and 0.85 measured with ABTS and 0.92 and 0.85 with DPPH in leaf and petal respectively and also both methods were correlated positively and significantly with each other (r= 0.91) in leaf and (r= 0.93) in petal.