Agronomic Comparisons of Heirloom and Modern Processing Tomato Genotypes Cultivated in Organic and Conventional Farming Systems

Abstract

The yield and fruit quality of processing tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.) have increased markedly over the past decades. The aim of this work was to assess the effects of the organic (OFS) and conventional farming systems (CFS) on the main agronomic parameters involved in processing tomato yield components and fruit quality traits of heirloom and modern genotypes. Marketable yield increased from heirloom to modern genotypes, both in OFS and in CFS, showing a difference of ≈20 t per hectare in favor of CFS. Total fruit yield (TY) was not improved from heirloom to modern assessed genotypes, and a difference of ≈35 t per hectare was observed in favor of CFS. In both farming systems, the highest marketable yield of modern genotypes was due to a higher number of fruits per plant, harvest index, nitrogen agronomic efficiency (NAE), and fruit water productivity. Moreover, the main growth parameters involved in the yield differences between OFS and CFS were the number of leaves per plant, the average fruit weight, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and NAE. It is noteworthy that fruit quality improvement in terms of color and brix per hectare was paralleled by a decrease of tomato pH in both farming systems. According to our results, we conclude that to reduce the current yield gap between OFS and CFS, agronomic and breeding efforts should be undertaken to increase leaf area index, fruit number per plant, and NAE for better genotype adaptation to organic farming systems.

The use of photosynthetic pigments and SPAD can help in the selection of bean genotypes under fertilization organic and mineral

“…When comparing the productive yield of fertilization (organic × mineral fertilizer), there is generally a notable superiority for chemical fertilization 38 , but on the other hand, the organic fertilizer has shown a higher LAI when compared to other polymers used in the market 39 . Experiments carried out with cultivars showed a higher LAI under mineral fertilizer, but some cultivars showed a higher index within the organic fertilizer, thus demonstrating the existence of cultivars better adapted to the organic material as fertilizer 40 . However, the different types of organic fertilization tested in the experiment tended to show a higher leaf area index compared to the mineral fertilization 41 .…”

Tomato Plant Microbiota under Conventional and Organic Fertilization Regimes in a Soilless Culture System

“…Unfortunately, it has been documented that tomato plants under organic farming undergo moderate environmental stress [ 11 ], causing lower fruit yields [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ], a reduction in fruit weight and firmness [ 14 , 16 ], and an increase in phytopathogen infections [ 9 , 17 ], compared to conventional production systems. Interestingly, it has been suggested that a potential cause of the agricultural problems observed in organic production could be associated with alterations of the tomato plant microbiota [ 18 , 19 , 20 ].…”