Carrot Production
By: Dean Knell

Many people in production agriculture are trying to express the importance of niche markets. This is simply a market in which a person or persons are targeting a specific audience in order to increase values of their goods or to turn a profit. In North Dakota, we have relied on these niche markets for many years.

The mass production of carrots has been around for many years. However, many of the carrots grown in the United States took place in Wisconsin, Iowa and southern Minnesota. The cultivated carrot is a biennial plant that normally requires two growing seasons with a cool rest period between them. This will complete its life cycle from the planting of seed to the maturing of seed.It generally takes about 60 to 90 days for the “root” to reach a suitable size for marketing.

Carrots grow best at mean temperatures between 60 and 70 F. During hot, bright, sunny days young plants may be badly injured or killed by the high temperatures that develop at or just below the soil surface. Prolonged hot weather later in the development of the plants may not only retard growth and depress yield, but may cause undesirable strong flavor and coarseness in the roots. Temperatures much below 50 F tend to make the roots longer, more slender, and paler in color than is typical.

To raise carrots as a cash crop, producers need to stretch out their planting dates in order to avoid complete losses due to such things as weather and insects. According to Iowa State University, small plantings every three weeks will ensure a continuous harvest without the risk of losing an entire crop. Carrots may be planted as late as August 1 for a fall crop.

As similar to other cash crops grown in mass production, diseases and insects are a growing and never ending problem. In carrots, a few of the more popular diseases are Alternaria leaf spot and Cercospora leaf spot. Alternaria leaf spot and Cercospora leaf spot cause similar symptoms on leaves and are difficult to distinguish in the field. Spots on leaves have a dark center surrounded by a yellow margin. The leaves curl when lesions appear on the edges of leaf segments. Both of these diseases can be controlled by regular applications of fungicides. A few other diseases include: white mold and aster yellows.
Depending of the year, insects can be very devastating to a carrot crop. Grasshoppers, cutworms and aphids are predominantly the most common predators. Insecticides can control many of the insects; however, strict health labels make it very costly to apply such products.

Fresh-market carrot harvest can begin in August and extends into mid-October. Undercutting the roots and elevating them out of the soil and into the machine mechanically harvest carrots by grasping the leaves. Thus, it is important to maintain healthy leaves until the carrots are harvested.

Carrot production in North Dakota is slowing catching on. There has been a significant increase in the production of vegetables due to the invention of cool-season varieties. Most of the carrots grown in North Dakota are raised in the southern part of the Red River Valley. Economic and cash flow budget show that carrots can gross as much as $287.00/acre when grown in those areas. Consequently, the mass production of carrots could prove to be abright spot in agriculture for North Dakota.

Here are a few links that may give you some more insight into the production of carrots:
http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/alt-ag/carrots.htm
http://www.hort.wisc.edu/usdavcru/simon/default.htm
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~taber/Extension/Carrots/carrots.html