Beyond the genome: carrot production trends, research advances, and future crop improvement

Extensive genotypic and phenotypic variation occurs across diverse carrot germplasm, and the recent sequencing of the carrot genome provides an important foundation to expand the application of biotechnological tools to take advantage of that variation for future carrot improvement. Global production trends indicate that growers can expect a continuing increase in the demand from carrot consumers in all production areas. Consumers have benefitted from efforts to increase the nutritional value and flavor of carrots for use in some global carrot markets, and extensive variation in consumer quality traits occurs in diverse germplasm to better meet consumer needs. Carrot growers have benefitted from the development of a reliable system to produce hybrid cultivars with improved uniformity, market value, and disease tolerance, and given the wide variation that occurs in diverse germplasm for production traits, future opportunities exist to further improve disease and pest resistance, weed competitiveness, flowering time, and seed yield. Breeders have developed cultivars well-suited for carrot production in warmer climates, and with the prospects for future warmer, drier climatic conditions in major agricultural regions, genetic variation conferring better adaptation to abiotic stress may be a more urgent need to meet future carrot production and consumer demands. The availability of the carrot genome provides a foundation to tap into the genomic diversity of carrots, to more efficiently and effectively deliver expanded improvements in consumer quality and crop production, to better meet those future demands.