Impact of silicon-enriched plant biostimulant treatment on shelf-life of baby spinach (Spinacia oleracea) crops

This research presents the findings from a series of experiments to assess and quantify the influence of compostable plastic packaging in combination with silicon biostimulant on waste produced in a typical leafy horticultural product. The research was conducted firstly by using an agricultural biostimulant consisting in varying supplementation with monosilicic acid, performed in 16 blocks with 3 different treatments and compared against the control samples. In addition, Equilibrium Modified Atmosphere Packaging (EMAP) packaging was designed using polypropylene (OPP) and compostable polylactic acid (PLA) films in order to assess the effect of potential mitigation of food waste production in combination with sustainable films. Storage studies were conducted to assess the amount of product that would run out of specification across a usability period of 7 days as an estimation of waste. The results show that 1 % waste was produced with OPP and no-mitigation, experiments showed a potential waste of 26 % using compostable films. The silicon-based supplementation managed to reduce waste by an average of 35 % in the case of the use with PLA. The results of this study establish a potential pathway for transition towards sustainable films in short shelf-life horticultural products using bio-stimulants with controlled dependents on EMAP.