Production and Quality of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants: Recent Findings on Stress Effects, Elicitors, Harvesting and Market Development

There is an expanding interest worldwide in medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) due to their use as raw materials in the production of medicinal, aromatic and cosmetic products [...

Struttura di popolazione di vongola verace (<i>Ruditapes decussatus</i> l.) in due lagune costiere della Sardegna = Population structure of carpet shell clam (<i>Ruditapes decussatus</i> l.) in two coastal lagoons of Sardinia (Italy)

Ruditapes decussatus L. (Bivalvia) is a traditional resource for fishing activity in Sardinia Island. This species is not cultured, but fishermen pick them up from the bottom of brackish areas. The distribution and the population structure of R. decussatus were investigated in two coastal lagoons: S. Giovanni (CA) and Calich (SS). The samplings were performed seasonally from autumn 2008 to summer 2009

Landscape and Agriculture 4.0: A Deep Farm in Italy in the underground of a Public Historical Garden

Each landscape is the result of an encounter with the culture of a community and the physical features of a territory. The conservation of the historical, artistic, and cultural heritage represents a priority for any society that wishes to draw on references for its civil progress. The aim of the present research is to combine the richness of the historical–cultural heritage with innovative forms of agriculture. It focuses on the recovery, in productive terms, of an air-raid shelter used during the SecondWorldWar, located in the center of Varese beneath the Estensi Historical Gardens. The project involves the construction of an underground Vertical Farm (Deep Farm) with the aim of restoring a place of memory, making it more accessible than it is today, and raising public awareness about a new cultivation model. A Deep Farm was designed with a cultivation area in the middle, an educational room, and two hygiene rooms, one at each end of the tunnel. A Vertical Farm was conceived to be shared with local stakeholders to produce vegetables and to foresee an innovative reality in the field of education and tourism. This project has the ambition of representing a model that could be used for similar Italian realities and enhancing meeting places between landscape and modern culture diversities

Mixing fresh-cut baby green and red leaf lettuce from soilless cultivation preserves phytochemical content and safety

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of different mixtures of two fresh-cut baby lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. var. crispa cv. Lollo Bionda [LB] and cv. Lollo Rossa [LR]) cultivars on lettuce phytochemical composition during postharvest. Lettuces were grown in a soilless culture system with continuous flotation (FL) in a greenhouse, mixed at harvest and packaged in polypropylene bags and stored at 4 °C for 9 days (d9). Mixes were made of 100, 75, 50, 25 and 0% of LB, respectively. The results showed that the phytochemicals were preserved during storage. In specific, 25LB had the highest pigment content on d1, while 50LB and 25LB had the highest inherent quality on d1.FL led to a reduced microbial contamination, thus, limiting its growth during storage. The results have revealed that high quality and microbiologically safe baby leaf vegetables (BLV), can be obtained by means of FL. The adopting a mix of lettuce cultivars could represent a positive postharvest practice to preserve the phytochemicals of BLV throughout their shelf life