Expired Analgesics as Domestic Germinators Applied to Lactuca sativa (Lettuce) and Daucus carota (Carrot) Species Proposed by Docking of the ETR‑1 Site

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in strengthening and intensifying local food production in order to mitigate the famine in some countries and the adverse effect of unpredictability in vegetable prices in other ones. As a result, home gardens are a strategy to improve household food security and nutrition in a wide variety of developing countries. Home gardens have a limited budget for their initial development; in this work, we propose a low-cost option of the reuse of expired analgesics as domestic germinators, which are highly commercialized medicines in the world. The selection of these active principles suggests a probable stimulation of the ethylene pathway, and this was analyzed through docking studies on the ETR-1 active site. For the present work, two vegetables with nutritional value and wide human consumption were selected, Lactuca sativa (lettuce) and Daucus carota (carrot), and these seeds were sprayed in different concentrations with acetyl salic acid, diclofenac, commercial root agent Radix 1500 (positive control), and water as a negative control. The experiments were carried out with 30 pots for each experimental and control group, and the experiment lasted 2 months, in which they were watered four times a week with the respective active ingredients, while maintaining a humidity of 80% and a neutral pH. We observed in the results that the vegetables sprayed with acetylsalicylic acid had a higher germination percentage and a higher average growth than the negative control group and the group sprayed with diclofenac. In addition, upon comparing the germination and growth data of lettuce and carrot for acetylsalicylic acid and Radix 1500, these are very similar, indicating that both chemical compounds have a positive effect on the development of these vegetables. With this, it can be concluded that controlled and continuous amounts of acetylsalicylic acid have a positive effect on lettuce and carrot crops, and the above will help improve performance, functionality, and adaptability for lettuce and carrots in home gardens.