Apricot Tree Nutrient Uptake, Fruit Quality and Phytochemical Attributes, and Soil Fertility under Organic and Integrated Management

Abstract

Organic cultivation management has generated a great deal of interest during the last decades. As there are numerous conflicting results in the literature on the superiority of organic cultivation over an integrated one, a trial occurred using two apricot cultivars, i.e., ‘Bebecou’ and ‘Diamantopoulou’, under integrated and organic cultivation (three orchards per cultivation system and cultivar). The trial occurred during a single cultivation period under different soil but the same climatic conditions. Fruit physiological (weight, diameters, skin color), organoleptic (pH, titratable acidity, and total soluble solids), and phytochemical (phenolic compounds, carbohydrates, organic acids, antioxidant activity, and carotenoids) attributes were assessed, along with plant nutrition, soil fertility status, and a sensory evaluation panel. The two cultivation practices exhibited similar effects in many of the parameters studied in this trial as well as small differences. Fruit weight was higher under organic management in ‘Bebecou’ and under integrated in ‘Diamantopoulou’, while copper was found at a higher concentration in the leaves of organically managed trees of both cultivars. The cultivar was found to have the greatest effects on the measured variables, while within each cultivation management, the farm also had a great impact, indicating that the outcome of specific cultivation practice is influenced by so many factors that it is almost impossible to come to a general conclusion about which practice is the best. Therefore, more research is needed, focused not only on the differences between organic and integrated cultivation management but primarily on the influence of specific cultivation practices within the same management system, to be able to elucidate, to some extent, the effects of individual factors on the measured variables.