The project “Carrot germplasm development and farmer training for production in stressful environments” is being implemented by the US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA_ARS), BAU, the University of Sargodha, and the World Vegetable Center. The project will take place from 2018 to 2020.
Bangladesh and Pakistan have initiated carrot improvement projects in some of their major agricultural universities, and the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg, legal name: Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center), has initiated an effort in developing a focus on carrot. These programs will regularly carry out field trials evaluating key carrot production characteristics. This project will provide funding to support 1) abiotic stress and pest screening, field testing, seed production, and eventual release of carrot breeding populations that have been field evaluated for performance in warm Asian and North American climates, and 2) farmer training on growing carrot roots, producing carrot seed, and recognizing carrot root and seed production characteristics. Information about optimal crop and seed production methodologies would be collected in this project so farmers can maintain their own seed supplies of climate-resilient marketable carrot selections. This project will have a combined impact in providing Asian carrot growers with greater self-sufficiency in meeting local demands for the carrot crop and carrot seeds, and with an improved market value for growers of that crop and seed, and it will provide carrot consumers with improved sources of essential dietary nutrients.
This project will focus on the crop wild relative taxa Daucus carota.
