Abstract
To prolong freshness and to reduce a decay rate of cut flowers during storage and distribution, a new packaging paper was developed with grapefruit seed extracts(GFSE) as a natural microorganism control agent. The GFSE was fractionated in order to identify antibiotic fractions by HPLC equipped with C18-reverse phase column chromatography. Among the active fractions, three ones were identified as 1-chloro-2-methyl-benzene (ο-toluene), N, N-dimethyl-benzenemethaneamine, and 1-〔2-(2-ethylethoxy)ethoxy〕-4-(1,1,3,3- tetra methyl)-benzene, while the other three remained unidentified. The GFSE-added paper displayed an effective inhibitory activity against putrefactive bacteria and fungi which were involved in the decay of flowers. Despite excellent antimicrobial acts of the GFSE-treated packaging paper, it was not possible to prevent the cut flowers from being dehydrated during storage, which led to the reduction of their fresh weight. However, additional treatment for giving water- repellency property to the GFSE-treated paper decreased a reduction rate of the fresh weight up to around 50% compared to the only GFSE-treated one.
