American magazine ‘Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry’ has published a study by the research group FQM-376 Advanced NMR Methods and Metal-basedCatalysts, from the CIAIMBITAL research center of the University of Almería, about the impact of the shade mesh on the nutritional properties of organic tomato using spectroscopic methods based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) combined with multiparametric statistical methods.
The field study carried out at the facilities of the Almería-based company Biosol Portocarrero is novel not only because it compares the productivity of organic tomato cultivation under a shading mesh compared to their conventional practice, but because a tool such as NMR in determining the composition of nutritionally healthy compounds in the fruits harvested under one or another agronomic practice.
The research, led by Ignacio Fernández de las Nieves, shows that the application of shading in organic tomato crops is accompanied by a increased antioxidant activity of tomato mainly due to increased levels of both flavonoids like phenylpropanoids. In counterpoint, the study concludes that there is a lower production in terms of kilos of fruit.
Source: Explica
