In the present study, we wanted to evaluate the use of
agro-industrial wastewater in a closed circle system where an agriculture and food manufacturing company produces and processes
tomatoes. The aim was to determine whether TW from the company can be used for tomato cropping without compromising the
quality and safety of the final product.
Our data have revealed many interesting aspects: (i) the yields of
the tomato fruit irrigated with TW were not significantly different
from those obtained when the crop was irrigated with GW; (ii) for
both the GW and TW irrigation treatments, the most important
morpho-qualitative parameters of the processing tomato fruit (i.e.,
dry matter content, pH, soluble solid content, color parameters)
were in agreement with those reported in the literature; and (iii)
tomatoes microbial quality was very good for all the thesis stated,
even when treated agro-industrial wastewaters were used. That
was made possible by combining an accurate control of irrigation
treatments with good agricultural practices.
Even if all of the fecal indicators monitored were well over
the threshold of the Italian legislation limit for irrigation re-use
of TW, the possible die-off of E. coli in the soil and the low levels of
total coliforms in the soil and plants are of particular interest. To a
broader extent, the community composition and the dynamics of
the whole bacterial population in the soil was affected by the different qualities of the GW and TW that were used for the tomato
crop irrigation.