Student/presenter: Azeezahmed Shaik, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Plant and Soil Science
Format: Oral presentation
Title: Yield Comparison of Vegetables Grown in Organic and Inorganic Production Systems: Meta-analysis
Azeezahmed Shaik, Manpreet Singh, and Sukhbir Singh
Texas Tech University, Department of Plant and Soil Science
Throughout the United States, demand for locally produced and organically grown vegetables is increasing. However, due to the lack of efficient organic fertilizers (OFs), the organic production of high-value vegetables seems challenging. Especially under-protected structures, limited research has been done to assess the efficacy of OFs compared to conventional inorganic fertilizers. Therefore, several experiments were designed to compare the use of liquid organic fertilizer (LOF) and inorganic fertilizer (IF) for different vegetable crops (tomato, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce, and other leafy greens) under three production systems (greenhouse, high tunnel, and open field). We subjected the yield results from these experiments to meta-analysis to quantify the overall effect of LOF and IF on vegetable production. The results indicate that the overall standard mean difference of yields decline in LOF compared to IF, the percentage decrease in the yield of organic was 5%. There was a 7% decline in open field yield due to LOF use compared to IF, followed by greenhouse (6.2%) and high tunnel yield (3.6%). Among different vegetables, the use of LOF resulted in a significant yield reduction in lettuce (11%) and eggplant (6%) whereas other vegetables produced a statistically similar yield as inorganic treatment. The organic yield reduction compared to inorganic was significantly higher in soilless conditions (6.2%) compared to the soil production system (4%). This meta-analysis suggests that organic vegetable cultivation could produce similar yields as inorganic cultivation, but the quality and economic feasibility of organic vegetable production need to be further investigated.