INFLUENCE OF FERTILIZATION ON THE QUALITY OF VEGETABLES IN PROTECTED CULTIVATION

Quality of vegetables is the sum total of attributes, generally differentiated as follows:

1. External features, which are determined by the "EC standard for fruit and vegetables for fresh market products", or by the German "Standard for vegetables for processing".

2. Suitability refers to the attributes of vegetables which make them suitable for special purposes.

3. Nutritional value is a comprehensive term for all constituents that make vegetables nutritive, digestible and health-promoting; but also undesirable substances.

4. The imaginative value, which does not relate to any quantitative magnitude.

The nutritional value seems to be the most important, since – in recent years – it has increasingly become the central point of considerations.
It comprises

1. positive constituents, creating a good-quality, nutritive product;

2. undesired substances, having a detrimental effect on the value of the product.

Positive constituents that make the good-quality product include:

• Vitamin C. The portion covered from vegetable consumption in the Federal Republic of Germany is as high as 30 % of the total requirement.

• Carotene /provitamin A/. The portion of this vitamin coming from vegetable consumption also is as high as 16%.

• Roughage /crude fibre/. As high as 14 % of the desirable daily per-capita consumption of 20 g are covered from vegetables.

Symposium on the Use of Fertilizers in Protected Vegetable Production

F. Venter, D. Fritz

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1984.145.3