Site and fruit maturity influence on the quality of European plum in organic production

Comparative fruit quality parameters of several Japanese plum varieties in two newly established orchards, organic and conventionally managed

“…Williams (2002) noted that the general perception is that organic products are healthier, but in general, most studies founded little difference in the composition between both management systems (see reviews of Woese et al, 1997;Dangour et al, 2009;Lima & Vianello, 2011 Ro´th et al (2007) did not found significant differences in the same compounds from organic and conventional apples. Special care must be taken when comparing conventional and organically produced fruit to avoid the interference in food properties of multiple parameters such as variety, soil type and climatology (Rato et al, 2008;Guerra & Casquero, 2009). In this study, we have fixed the plum varieties, year of plantation, type of soil, irrigation and type of pruning.…”

“…Although few significant differences have been observed in this study, there seems to be a slight trend in organic fruit to have lesser acidity, and its concentration of soluble solids is similar or higher. Moreover, the ratio of percentage soluble solids to percentage acid, named maturity index, has been found to be more closely related to quality than acid content or SSC content alone and has often been used as a standard to estimate the fruit maturity (Lill et al, 1989;Barclays, 2002;Guerra & Casquero, 2009). In our study, we have found few differences, suggesting that the fruit from both orchards was in a similar state of maturation.…”