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Research article2015Peer reviewedOpen access

High- but not low-intensity light leads to oxidative stress and quality loss of cold-stored baby leaf spinach

Glowacz, Marcin; Mogren, Lars; Reade, John; Cobb, Andrew; Monaghan, James

Abstract

BACKGROUND Quality management in the fresh produce industry is an important issue. Spinach is exposed to various adverse conditions (temperature, light, etc.) within the supply chain. The present experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of light conditions (dark, low-intensity light (LL) and high-intensity light (HL)) and photoperiod (6h HL and 18h dark) on the quality changes of cold-stored spinach.

RESULTS HL exposure resulted in oxidative stress, causing tissue damage and quality loss as evidenced by increased membrane damage and water loss. The content of total ascorbic acid was reduced under HL conditions. On the other hand, storage of spinach under LL conditions gave promising results, as nutritional quality was not reduced, while texture maintenance was improved. No significant differences, with the exception of nutritional quality, were found between spinach leaves stored under continuous (24h) low-intensity light (30-35 mu molm(-2)s(-1)) and their counterparts stored under the same light integral over 6h (130-140 mu molm(-2)s(-1)).
CONCLUSION LL extended the shelf-life of spinach. The amount of light received by the leaves was the key factor affecting produce quality. Light intensity, however, has to be low enough not to cause excess oxidative stress and lead to accelerated senescence. (c) 2014 Society of Chemical Industry

Keywords

ascorbic acid; colour evaluation; light intensity; membrane integrity; shelf-life; spinach

Published in

Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
2015, Volume: 95, number: 9, pages: 1821-1829
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

    UKÄ Subject classification

    Horticulture

    Publication identifier

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.6880

    Permanent link to this page (URI)

    https://res.slu.se/id/publ/67473