Quality of tomatoes produced with different doses of organic compost

Abstract

Commercial and experimental hybrid tomatoes (‘San Vito’, ‘Giuliana’, ‘Jupter’, ‘HEM031’) were grown using an organic system of production with four different levels of organic compost (6, 12, 24 and 40 t ha-1) in the Embrapa Vegetables experimental field, District Federal, Brazil, and were harvested in July 2008 for final quality evaluation. Color, firmness, acidity, pH, soluble solids, sugars, Vitamin C, lycopene, β-carotene, and nitrate were analyzed, and microbiological evaluations were performed. In all fruits treated with doses of organic compost, there was no Salmonella present, and coliforms and nitrate concentrations were within established limits. Higher pH values were observed in ‘HEM031’ and lower values were found in ‘Giuliana’ fruit, while for acidity, lower values were observed in the ‘HEM031’ fruit and higher values were observed for ‘Jupter’. The ‘San Vito’ hybrid fruit had higher concentrations of nitrate, vitamin C, lycopene, a* color value, firmness and total soluble solids, and ‘Jupter’ exhibited higher levels of sugars and β carotene. Regression analysis showed that ‘San Vito’ hybrid had the highest levels of total soluble solids, vitamin C, lycopene and a* color value after applications of 27.5, 24.2, 28.6 and 18.8 t ha-1 of organic compost, respectively.