Evaluation of carrot and onion cultivars for commercial production in Guyana

Abstract

Experiments were conducted at two locations (Central Agricultural Station, CAS, Mon Repos, and Black Bush Polder) in Guyana, to evaluate carrot and onion cultivars for adaptability to the climatic conditions. Onion cultivars were tested for the production of dry bulbs as well as for the green tops. ‘Chantenay Red Core’, ‘Improved Danvers-126’, ‘Nantes Strong Top’, ‘Nantesa Superior’, and ‘New Kuroda’ carrot produced average yields between 14 and 25 t/ha. Dry bulb yields of ‘Bermuda-986’, ‘Granex’, ‘Red Creole’, ‘San Felipe’, and ‘White Creole’ onion were lowest of all cultivars included in these trials. At the CAS, ‘Texas Grano-502’ and ‘White Alamo’ produced larger onion bulbs with average weights of 82 and 77 g, respectively. At Black Bush Polder ‘El Toro’ produced the largest onion bulbs with an average weight of 77 g. In storage, bulb losses for red onion cultivars, ‘Red Creole’, ‘Red Granex’, ‘Tropicana’, were lowest at all samplings during the 82 days storage period. White onions were most susceptible to loss in storage. Average losses of white onions were 33.3, 63.7, 74.6 and 86.2% at 21, 44, 55, and 82 days in storage, respectively. Storage losses for ‘White Creole’, which was an exception, were 11.1, 35.9, 46.4, and 57.0% for the above-mentioned storage durations respectively. Among four cultivars evaluated for green onion production, ‘Evergreen Bunching’ produced the highest yield (28.6 t/ha).