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All cut flowers are destined to die, and the challenge for post harvest researchers is to slow the processes controlling flower death to enable cut flowers to reach distant markets with a display life. An experiment was carried out to study the effect of nitric oxide (NO), provided through sodium nitroprusside (SNP; 100 ppm L −1 ) on physiology and vase life of cut flowers of Gladiolus grandiflora variety “Snow Princess”. The vase solution having SNP showed significant increment in cumulative uptake of vase solution by flower spikes as compared to control and improved vase life. The level of lipid peroxidation, lipoxygenase (LOX) and protease activity was lower while the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and membrane stability was improved in SNP treated florat/spike. Moreover, the expression of senescence associated genes (SAGs) viz ., GgCyP1 was downregulated, while, GgDAD1 expression was up-regulated in SNP treated spikes. Finding of the study suggested that the application of SNP increases vase life by increasing the scavenging mechanism of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in terms of antioxidants activity, membrane stability and down-regulation of GgCyP1 expression in gladiolus cut flowers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]