Impact of Conventional and Integrated Management Systems on the Water-Soluble Vitamin Content in Potatoes, Field Beans, and Cereals

• Published in: Journal of agricultural and food chemistry Vol. 66; no. 4; pp. 831 - 841
• Main Authors: Freitag, Sabine, Verrall, Susan R, Pont, Simon D.A, McRae, Diane, Sungurtas, Julia A, Palau, Raphaëlle, Hawes, Cathy, Alexander, Colin J, Allwood, J. William, Foito, Alexandre, Stewart, Derek, Shepherd, Louise V.T
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 31-01-2018
• Subjects: Agriculture - methods; Ascorbic Acid - analysis; Crops, Agricultural - chemistry; Edible Grain - chemistry; Hordeum - chemistry; Niacin - analysis; Nutritive Value; Seasons; Solanum tuberosum - chemistry; Thiamine - analysis; Triticum - chemistry; United Kingdom; Vicia faba - chemistry; Vitamin B Complex - analysis; Vitamins - analysis; wheat (Triticum aestivum L.); field beans (Vicia faba L.); water-soluble vitamins (WSVs); potato (Solanum tuberosum L.); barley (Hordeum vulgare L.); integrated management; liquid chromatography−triple quadrupole mass spectrometry
• ISSN: 0021-8561; 1520-5118
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.7b03509

The reduction of the environmental footprint of crop production without compromising crop yield and their nutritional value is a key goal for improving the sustainability of agriculture. In 2009, the Balruddery Farm Platform was established at The James Hutton Institute as a long-term experimental platform for cross-disciplinary research of crops using two agricultural ecosystems. Crops representative of UK agriculture were grown under conventional and integrated management systems and analyzed for their water-soluble vitamin content. Integrated management, when compared with the conventional system, had only minor effects on water-soluble vitamin content, where significantly higher differences were seen for the conventional management practice on the levels of thiamine in field beans (p < 0.01), Spring barley (p < 0.05), and Winter wheat (p < 0.05), and for nicotinic acid in Spring barley (p < 0.05). However, for all crops, variety and year differences were of greater importance. These results indicate that the integrated management system described in this study does not significantly affect the water-soluble vitamin content of the crops analyzed here.