COMPARISON OF AUTUMN SOWING AND SPRING SOWING OF CARROTS

The effect of autumn sowing on yield in the carrot was clarified in a series of tests carried out in Piikkiö, southwest Finland, Ruukki, northern Ostrobothnia, and Rovaniemi, Lapland.
In Piikkiö, a good yield with autumn sowing was obtained in one out of the three years of trials.
The yield obtained on the carrots sown in November 1978 was high on both harvestings the following year, early August and late September.
The earliest spring sowing, however, gave the same yield at the early harvest as the autumn sowings.
In the other years, most of the seeds sown in the autumn did in fact germinate before the frosts, and were thus destroyed during the winter.
In Ruukki, the autumn sowings failed in each of the years; in Rovaniemi some yield on the sowings carried out in late September-early October being obtained each year, but only one year did the harvest from the autumn sowing exceed that from the spring sowings at the end of May.
Autumn sowing of the carrot is thus shown on the findings of this experiment to be an unreliable method of cultivation.
One of the difficulties was in determining the appropriate moment for sowing; a second consisted of the excessive moisture of the ground, which hampered the work of sowing.

Symposium on Timing of Field Production of Vegetables

R. Pessala

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1981.122.18