ORGANIC VS CONVENTIONAL ALMOND: MARKET QUALITY, FATTY ACID COMPOSITION AND VOLATILE AROMA COMPOUNDS.

Organic agriculture is an integrated form of agriculture combines techniques of ancient knowledge with current science and targets to exclude inorganic fertilizers, growth regulators and pesticides. Generally organic products are accepted as healthier and better tasting. This opinion is more common for fruits and vegetables. Series of studies on comparison of organic and conventional fruits and vegetables have been performed but comparison of analytical quality parameters lacks in previous studies especially fatty acids and volatile aroma compounds. This study compares pomological parameters, some selected chemical properties, fatty acid composition and volatile aroma compounds of organic and conventionally grown Ferragnes and Ferraduel almond cultivars. Results indicated significant differences between cultivars and growing systems suggesting a better overall market quality for organic kernel samples. Total oil and linoleic acid was lower in organic samples, whereas oleic was higher (82.4% in both cultivars) when compared with conventional samples (78.9% for Ferragnes and 75.8% for Ferraduel). Most of the aroma compounds detected in this present study are new record for almond aroma-active compounds. In an overall view, organic samples resulted with higher contents of aroma compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]