Organic Greenhouse Tomato Production in Raised Bed Containers under Commercial Conditions: Conclusion of a 3‑Year Study

V. Gravel, M. Dorais and C. Ménard

Abstract

Greenhouse effluents released in the environment has raised concerns among greenhouse growers in the past years resulting in them seeking more sustainable growing systems. This lead, in addition to increasingly restrictive guidelines, to a willingness to convert conventional systems to organic production systems.

A three-year project was undertaken to evaluate the feasibility of converting part of a greenhouse tomato production to organic. The specific objective of this third year of the study was to evaluate two organic growing systems using raised bed containers.

An experiment was performed under commercial greenhouse conditions (complete block design with 3 replicates) to compare a conventional system with two organic growing media (first and second media). Plants were fertilized using compost, shrimp meal and seaweed extract as needed whereas the conventional fertilisation consisted of a typical nutrient solution already in use at the commercial greenhouse. Tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum cv. Clermont grafted on Maxi­fort) were grown from January 2009 to December 2009. Plant growth and development as well as yield and soil solution nutrient content were evaluated throughout the production year. CO₂ effluxes and fruit quality was also evaluated during the experiment.

Results showed that the total yields in tomato were similar for the second year growing medium treatment and the conventional system whereas the first year growing medium treatment showed a lower total yield compared to the other two. Also, the percentage of #1 fruits was similar in the two organic treatments and was lower than for the conventional system.

This three-year study showed that organic tomato yields similar to conventional yields can be achieved under commercial conditions using raised bed containers and appropriate organic fertilization management.

Source

Proceedings of the 28th International Horticultural Congress. Lisbon, Spain. August 22-27, 2011


Posted June 2011