On the validation of improved quality-decay models of potted plants

Storage experiments were carried out with potted plants: two Phalaenopsis cultivars and one Anthurium cultivar. The plants were stored in the dark for different storage times at different temperatures, to mimick a transport phase. Different quality aspects were scored immediately after the transport phase and after a subsequent display phase of 7 and 14 days at in-store conditions. Improved quality decay models compared to previous work were designed to quantify the effect of transport on the shelf life of potted plants. Of each cultivar, plants were obtained from two commercial growers in the Netherlands. Only the data from the first grower were used for improving the quality-decay models. The models were subsequently validated using the data from the second grower, as well as data from the first grower from year 2013 instead of 2015. So validation took place both in origin (a different grower) and in time (a different year). The validation showed that the behaviour of Anthurium ‘Arion’ was well predicted by the previously designed quality-decay models. For Phalaenopsis the performance of the quality-decay models differed per storage temperature. It was concluded that a quality-decay model first needs to be validated before it can be applied to predict the quality decay of a different production batch.