Evaluation of European Carrot (Daucus carota L.) Genotypes in Mid Hill Conditions of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

Twenty diverse genotypes of European carrot (Daucus carota L.) were evaluated for horticultural traits viz., marketable root yield/plot, biological yield/plant, root length, root diameter, root to top ratio, leaf length, number of leaves/plant, days taken to marketable maturity and unmarketable root (%) and quality traitsviz., dry matter content, TSS, total sugar contents and carotene content at the experimental farm of Hill Agricultural Research and Extension Centre (HAREC), Bajaura during August­November, 2009. The analysis of variance revealed sufficient variation among the genotypes for all the traits studied. Based on mean performance, genotype C­1 was found promising for marketable root yield per plot and related horticultural traits like biological root yield per plant, root length, root diameter, leaf length and days taken to marketable maturity. The genotype C­3 (96.33 days) took minimum days to marketable maturity. Whereas, for quality traits Tabo­2 was assessed superior with respect to dry matter content (12.94%) and total soluble solids (10%), while Nantes and Kuroda­2 were promising for total sugar contents (5.26 mg/100g each) and carotene content (7.25 mg and 6.79 mg per 100g) respectively and these genotypes can be exploited in future breeding programmes.