Yield, Quality and Nutritional Status of Organic vs. Conventional Strawberry Cultivars

Background and methodology:

In this study, five short-day strawberry cultivars including Sweet Charlie, Redlans Hope, Kabarla, Festival, and Camarosa were grown to evaluate their yield, quality, and nutritional status under organic and conventional growing conditions in the 2004-2005 seasons. 

Findings:

In the conventional system, plants had early flowering and fruit development and produced higher yield when compared to the organic system. There also were significant differences in average fruit weight among cultivars in the organic and conventional system. However, differences between growing systems in terms of fruit weight of each cultivar were not significant.  

Redlans Hope had the highest average weight under conventional and organic systems, followed by Camarosa and Kabarla. Total soluble solid content and titretable acidity of fruit differed among the cultivars, with Sweet Charlie and Festival cultivars having the highest total soluble solid content under the conventional system. Titretable acidity of fruit was strongly affected by fertilizer management and it was lower under organic growing conditions when compared to the conventional system. Kabarla and Camarosa yielded higher not only in the conventional system but also in the organic system. Slow release of the nutrients from organic fertilizer was the main cause of lower yield of organically grown strawberries.

Reference:

Macit, I.,  Koc, A., Guler, S., Deligoz, I. (2007). Yield, quality and nutritional status of organically and conventionally-grown strawberry cultivars.  Asian Journal of Plant Sciences, 6 (7), 1131-1136. Available on-line at:http://www.scialert.net/previous.php?issn=1682-3974