Spinach is an important dietary leafy vegetable with high vita-min and mineral contents. To be accepted by consumers, leaves
must be green and turgid. However, these attributes of acceptable
produce are lost quickly during postharvest handling as a con-sequence of senescence, especially under non-refrigerated and/or
dark conditions. Chlorophyll, protein, and antioxidant losses are
characteristic changes taking place during leaf senescence, and
these changes are under environmental and hormonal control
(Ferrante and Francini, 2006). Previous studies showed that ethy-lene stimulates foliar senescence (Yamauchi and Watada, 1991).
In particular, treatment of detached spinach leaves with ethy-lene accelerates senescence and enhances degradative processes
(Hodges and Forney, 2000). Detached spinach leaves present two
peaks of ethylene biosynthesis, thefirst peak is observed after exci-sion from the plant and is smaller than the second and main peak
occurring after 5–7d of storage in the dark at 25
◦
C(Philosoph-Hadas et al., 1989). Treatment with an inhibitor of ethylene