Food Safety and Yield of Heirloom Tomatoes Grown On Compost and Mychorrhizae -amended Soil At a Transitioning Organic Site

The use of organic amendments, such as poultry compost to soil may pose food safety risk if pathogenic microorganisms are present. A field study was conducted on an organic transitioning site in summer 2010 at the University’s Agriculture Experiment Station to determine the effect of vesicular arbuscular mycorrhiza (VAM) and poultry compost on the food safety and fruit yield of two tomato cultivars, Debaro Plum and Brandywine Red. Tomato seedlings were transplanted at the field site and subjected to four treatments; control, VAM, poultry compost, and VAM + poultry compost. The experimental design was a split plot with the two varieties as the main plot and the treatments as subplots with four replications per treatment. The treatments had no significant effect on the yield or food safety of the fruits which were negative for the presence of both E. coli and Salmonella.  Tomato cultivar  Debaro plum yielded significantly higher marketable fruits (9.98 kg /five plants) than the later and larger fruited Brandywine Red cultivar (1.74 kg /five plants).  These results indicate that the soil amendments used in this study did not pose a food safety risk factor to tomato fruits of Debaro Plum and Brandywine Red.