Low Ethylene Technology in Non-Optimal Storage Temperatures
Ron B.H. Wills, John Golding · 2015
Ethylene (CH2 = CH2) is notable as the dening metabolic difference between plant and animals systems. Ethylene is only synthesized by plants and has a major regulatory role in the growth, development, and senescence of all plants. This is in contrast to the lack of any known synthesis or metabolic effect on animal systems. In addition, ethylene was the only known endogenous gas to act as a plant-growth regulator, but the relatively recent discovery of the synthesis and metabolic effects of the previously considered toxic gases, nitric oxide (Leshem, 2000), and hydrogen sulphide (Wagner, 2009) in animals, and even more recently in plants, has underscored the limitation of our knowledge of metabolism (see Chapter 9 for postharvest effects of nitric oxide).