Comparison of Tomato Genotypes Grown Under Conventional and Organic Production System for Nutrient Composition

There is a growing interest in the quality of fruits and vegetables produced under conventional and organic production system.  While some of the reports on subjective comparison of quality of fruits and vegetables produced under conventional and organic systems are already available, we were interested to determine the genotypic differences under conventional and organic production system for nutrient composition in tomato.  For that, we grew three genotypes of tomato with three replications under organic and conventional production system at Mountain Research Station, Waynesville, NC. Nutrient analysis was performed from vegetative (leaf) and reproductive (fruit) parts at three different stages. Results indicated that conventional system was significantly (p<0.05) better than organic system for almost all nutrient availability except Magnesium and Sulfur. No genotypic differences was found for nutrients availability from vegetative stage to reproductive stage indicating that either the number of genotypes in the study was too small to draw the conclusion or all genotypes show the similar pattern for nutrient uptake and utilization under conventional and organic production system. This information may be useful to address the questions related to these two production systems with respect to nutrient utilization.