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

Twenty diverse genotypes of European carrot (Daucus carota L.) were evaluated for horticultural traits viz., marketable ischolar_main yield/plot, biological yield/plant, ischolar_main length, ischolar_main diameter, ischolar_main to top ratio, leaf length, number of leaves/plant, days taken to marketable maturity and unmarketable ischolar_main (%) 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 ischolar_main yield per plot and related horticultural traits like biological ischolar_main yield per plant, ischolar_main length, ischolar_main 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.