Yield, Quality and Nutritional Status of Organically and Conventionally-Grown Strawberry Cultivars

In this study, five short-day strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch) 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 2004-2005 seasons. In the conventional system, plants had early flowering and fruit development and produced higher yield when compared to the organic system. According to total yield of two years, there were significant differences between two growing systems, ranging from 21 (Camarosa) to 29% (Sweet Charlie). There were also significant differences in average fruit weight among cultivars in organic and conventional system. However, difference between growing systems in terms of fruit weight of each cultivar was not significant. Redlans Hope had the highest average fruit weight under conventional and organic system, followed by Camarosa and Kabarla. Total Soluble Solid (TSS) content and Titretable Acidity (TA) of fruit differed among the cultivars. Sweet Charlie and Festival cultivars had the highest TSS content under 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. Cultivars differed significantly in Chlorophyll (CHL) and leaf N contents, Kabarla and Redlans Hope had the highest values. It was found that there was significant correlation between CHL and leaf N (r = 0.551, p<0.001). Kabarla and Camarosa were the cultivars yielded higher not only in conventional system but also in organic system.