Effects of Plastic Mulches on Growth, Yield and Quality of Baby Carrot Germplasm

Carrot (Daucus carota L.) is an important biennial root vegetable crop in Bangladesh. But Baby carrot having the higher nutritional status is a new crop of Bangladesh. Different germplasms of baby carrots have strong interaction with plastic mulches for growth, yield and quality. The experiment was conducted at the Horticulture Farm of the Department of Horticulture, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh from the period of October 2023 to February 2024 to study the effects of plastic mulches on growth, yield and quality of baby carrot germplasm. The experiment consisted of five baby carrot germplasms namely G1 (PI L1408), G2 (Nantes 5), G3 (261650), G4 (PI 1408) and G5 (Upper cut) and five coloured plastic mulches viz., T0 (control), T1 (black), T2 (silver), T3 (blue) and T4 (red). The two-factor experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Significant variations were observed due to interaction between germplasms and plastic mulches on all the growth, yield and quality parameters studied. At harvest, maximum root length (29.07 cm) was obtained from PI L1408 with black plastic mulch, maximum root diameter (4.19 cm), root weight (174.45 g), yield (27.06 t/ha), marketable yield (26.81 t/ha) were obtained from Nantes 5 with black plastic mulch, maximum branched root (11.60%) was recorded from PI 262650 with control and maximum leaf weight (65.63 g) was found from Nantes 5 with blue plastic mulch. On the contrary, minimum root length (15.74 cm) was recorded from Upper cut with red plastic mulch, minimum root diameter (2.06 cm), root weight (40.43 g), yield (12.36 t/ha), marketable yield (12.25 t/ha) were obtained from PI 1408 with control and maximum leaf weight (24.07 g) from PI 1408 with blue plastic mulch treatment. Therefore, interaction between Nantes 5 with black plastic mulch was found to be better in respect of growth, yield and quality of baby carrots.