Vitamin C sprays help roses bloom more and smell better
Crop Improvement
If you grow roses for cut flowers or fragrance, a simple vitamin C spray could mean more blooms and richer-smelling petals without switching to synthetic chemicals.
Researchers sprayed rose bushes with ascorbic acid, the same vitamin C found in citrus fruit, and found the plants produced more flowers. The oil extracted from those roses, the kind used in perfumes, also came out in greater amounts and with better quality. It's a low-cost, low-tech way to get more value from a rose crop.
Key Findings
Ascorbic acid application increased overall flower yield in treated rose plants
Rose essential oil quantity extracted from treated flowers increased compared to untreated controls
Essential oil quality, likely measured by aromatic compound composition, improved with ascorbic acid treatment
chevron_right Technical Summary
Spraying rose plants with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) boosted flower yield and improved the quantity and quality of the essential oil distilled from the petals, offering growers a cheap way to increase both blooms and perfume-grade oil output.
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