Features of growing carrots
Carrots are a very popular vegetable crop. Now there is a tendency to switch from conventional varieties to hybrids. Hybrid carrots are more resistant to diseases, arrows are practically not formed on it. Breeders have developed high-yielding varieties of carrots, which increased the yield to 85 tons per hectare. These varieties include hybrids "Abaco F1" and "Santa Cruz F1".
Planting carrots
In order to get high-quality carrots, you need to perform a number of activities, such as:
- Soil preparation - plowing, cultivation, ridge preparation. The best way to grow hybrid carrots is the wide bed method. It allows you to get better quality even root crops. The area for sowing in this way is prepared in the fall, which makes it possible to start the planting season earlier. This ensures good germination of carrots.
- The planting density is very important. To obtain early carrots, it is necessary to use sparse sowing. This will allow the root crop to form faster. But at the same time, there is a high probability of the formation of lateral roots and cracking of the root crop, so you need to carefully control the watering of the plants.
- To obtain high yields, it is important to feed the plants with potash fertilizers throughout the season.
The method of growing carrots on the ridge is bad because the soil prepared in this way is eroded by heavy rains and does not completely cover the carrots. A green "shoulder" is formed on the root crop due to sunburn.
For late carrots, the seeding density is 4-5 cm from each other. With a tighter planting, high-quality, even carrots grow.
Read the article:feeding carrots in the open field in July!
Reasons for the formation of uneven root crops
Carrots can form side shoots for several reasons. These include:
- too dense soil, which does not allow the development of the central root;
- root crops in the early stages of development can be damaged by insects or nematodes, which damage the growing point;
- sparse sowing;
- damage by herbicides.
Subject to certain growing rules, even and beautiful roots are obtained.
Diseases and pests of carrots
Powdery mildew often strikes planting carrots. To solve this problem, it is necessary to loosen the row spacings for better ventilation, properly water, treat carrots with fungicides 3-4 times per season.
Also, carrots are often affected by various viral and bacterial diseases such as: Alternaria, leaf redness virus and others. Viral diseases are spread by aphids and other insects. In order to get rid of pests, it is necessary to treat the plants with insecticides once every 2 weeks.
Often the plant is affected by fungal diseases. The fungus develops on plants with weakened immunity, therefore, in order to cope with the disease, it is necessary to increase watering and feed carrots with potash fertilizers.