Comparison of heirloom and hybrid tomatoes growing under organic and conventional production system in Indiana

Interest in heirloom tomatoes in recent years has been most notable in local markets and in organic agriculture production. Many heirloom cultivars have outstanding flavor, interesting color and shapes, and more growers are now cultivating them. Heirloom refers to an open-pollinated cultivar that has been grown for at least 50 years. However, there are some challenges in growing them for commercial use. For instance, several different heirloom cultivars are presently grown and marketed, but very little is known about their quality. An additional challenge is whether growing heirloom tomatoes in an organic production system is possible. For these reasons, a three year field research project was conducted to evaluate five heirlooms cultivars in comparison with five hybrid cultivars for yield, fruit quality, lycopene, β-carotene, °brix, and pH characteristics. The field experiment was conducted in different conditions, one considered organic and the other conventional. Ripe yield averaged over all cultivars (heirloom and hybrid) was not different between the organic and conventional production systems. Marketable fruit averaged over all cultivars was higher in the conventional system only in 2008 but was not different in 2009 and 2010. Marketable yield of hybrid and heirloom cultivars was not different between the production systems except in 2008 in which both had higher marketable yield in the conventional system. The chemical quality parameters measured were not different between the production systems for all cultivars in 2008 but in 2010 conventionally grown tomatoes tended to have higher lycopene and β-carotene. Results show that tomatoes, both hybrid and heirloom, can be produced under both organic and conventional systems and result in acceptable yield and quality under Indiana conditions