Precipitation, drought, and soil factors affecting carrot quality

In the present work we have investigated the effects of abiotic and biotic factors on the growth and quality of carrots. The experiment tested how precipitation above field capacity (WATER) vs. no precipitation (DROUGHT) affect carrot growth and storability. Each treatment period lasted three weeks. We found no yield difference between the treatments at harvesting the carrots (6.6 vs. 6 t daa‑1) and the proportion of fresh roots was generally around 85%. High precipitation, especially in the latter part of the growth period, resulted in a higher proportion of cracked roots, number of roots with a lighter colour, rot in the upper part of the root and the occurrence of enlarged cork cells. After storage, we did not see any difference between the different treatments in the proportion of fresh roots. There was a slight tendency for tip rot to increase during drought at the end of the season. The soil content of phosphorous (P), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca) and sodium (Na) was reduced by high water supply, especially early in the season. The nutrient content in the roots was generally less affected by treatments than the soil mineral content. We found that the content of K and manganese (Mn) was higher at high water supply and the content of zinc (Zn) and ion (Fe) lower. The dry matter content was lowest in the treatments with a high-water supply. As the precipitation influences the soil content of some minerals, we looked at how low pH, low Ca content in the soil, would influence carrot growth. High soil pH (7.4 vs. 5.5) resulted in a higher proportion of roots with fingers when harvesting, but a lower proportion of roots with tip rot after storage (7.8 vs. 3.3%) as well as a higher proportion of healthy roots (83% vs. 67%). The conclusion is that the climatic changes where periods with high precipitation and with drought occur more often require attention to cultivation methods to reduce the negative effects.