Shelf Life of Greenhouse- and Garden-grown Kale in Nitrogen-enriched and Nonenriched Packaging

Over half of global food waste occurs in retail and households, highlighting the importance improving shelf life. Many factors affect life, including storage temperature, harvest time, processing method, packaging. Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), such as nitrogen (N 2 ), has been used to improve life produce. This study aimed determine effect nitrogen-enriched on greenhouse- garden-grown kale raised beds outdoors. Five cultivars (Black Magic, Darkibor, Lacinato, Red Russian, Westlander) were grown greenhouse, four (Curly Roja, Dwarf Green Curled, Meadowlark, Vates) outdoors beds, harvested stored or nonenriched bags for 6 days. Leaf water content, activity, color, visual score, texture measured each replicate. Nitrogen-enriched did not Garden-grown exhibited significantly lower activity (0.979 vs. 0.999) noticeably content (88.6 90.6%) than greenhouse-grown kale. The significant all tested except day 4 change light dark (Δ L*) blue yellow b*) color ratios. At end study, Darkibor Curly Roja had highest score (4.4) (305 g), respectively. high performance ‘Darkibor’ ‘Curly Roja’ may be due decreased values values. Future breeding efforts focused should use top-performing identified this a diverse genetic population range environments develop with longer