Ornamental foliage plants are valued for their catchy leaves with diverse shapes and colors, but dark-induced plant senescence or deterioration during transport greatly limits the quality of foliage plants. Melatonin is an important signaling molecule that affects pleiotropic developmental progress in plants. Aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG) is a potent inhibitor of ethylene biosynthesis and is extensively used to delay plant senescence and fruit ripening. In this study, we compared the effects of melatonin and AVG on alleviating plant deterioration of three Pilea species (P. cadierei (PC), P. involucrata (PI), and P. mollis (PM)) through foliar sprays of different concentrations of melatonin or AVG prior to darkness treatment. Our results showed that PC, PI, and PM exhibited distinct responses to melatonin or AVG. PM was the most sensitive species and it exhibited significant increases in stem height, leaf area, chlorophyll, and anthocyanin content in response to 50, 100, and 150 μmol·L⁻¹ of melatonin; similar responses to 150 and 200 μmol·L⁻¹ of melatonin were observed in PI with regard to these plant characteristics. By contrast, much weaker effects of AVG on these plant characteristics were observed in PM and PI, although it increased their Fv/Fm values as did melatonin. Unlike PM and PI, PC is generally not responsive to all melatonin and AVG treatments, although AVG treatments did change its stem elongation. These results may provide growers with science-based information for future practical application of melatonin to improve the post-harvest quality of ornamental plants.

观赏观叶植物因其形状和颜色各异的上钩叶片而受到重视，但深色诱导的植物衰老或运输过程中的变质极大地限制了观叶植物的质量。褪黑素是影响植物多效性发育进程的重要信号分子。氨基乙氧基乙烯基甘氨酸（AVG）是有效的乙烯生物合成抑制剂，被广泛用于延缓植物衰老和果实成熟。在这项研究中，我们比较了褪黑激素和AVG对缓解三个厂恶化的影响冷水花种（P. cadierei（PC），P.珙桐（PI），和P.油树（PM）），然后在黑暗处理之前通过叶面喷洒不同浓度的褪黑激素或AVG。我们的结果表明，PC，PI和PM对褪黑激素或AVG表现出不同的反应。PM是最敏感的物种，响应于50、100和150μmol·L ^-1的褪黑素，其茎高，叶面积，叶绿素和花色苷含量显着增加；对150和200μmol·L ^-1的响应相似就这些植物特性而言，在PI中观察到褪黑激素含量降低。相反，在PM和PI中观察到AVG对这些植物特性的影响要弱得多，尽管它与褪黑素一样增加了它们的Fv / Fm值。与PM和PI不同，尽管AVG治疗确实改变了其茎的伸长率，但PC通常对所有褪黑激素和AVG治疗无反应。这些结果可能为种植者提供基于科学的信息，以供褪黑激素在未来的实际应用中改善观赏植物的收获后质量。