Morphological Performance of Carrot (Daucus carota) Based on Seedbed Types in Uyo Local Government Area

The purpose of the study was to determine the morphological performance of carrot (Daucus carota) based on seedbed types in Uyo Local Government Area. Two specific objectives, two research questions and two hypotheses guided this study. This study adopted an experimental research design with the experimental layout of a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). The population for this study consisted of 345 Thema cultivar of imperator variety of carrot seedlings from which the sample size of 103 carrot seedlings was used for the study. The experiment was layout in three blocks. Each block had one flat one sunken and one raised seedbeds of 1m by 1m and neighboring experimental units were separated by space of 0.5m. Data were collected through observation and recordings from standardized instrument used in measuring length of shoot and number of leaves. Data collected from the study were analyzed using mean to answer the research questions and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for testing of the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings on morphological performance showed that carrot grown on flat seedbed had the highest length of shoot and number of leaves followed by those cultivated on raised seedbed and sunken seedbed respectively. More so, findings showed that there was a significant difference in the length of shoot and number of leaves of carrot cultivated on raised seedbed, sunken seedbed and flat seedbed with flat seedbed being responsible for morphological differences. It was concluded that flat seedbed type highly supports morphological performance than other seedbed types (sunken and raised seedbeds). On the basis of the findings it was recommended among others that horticulturists raising carrots for aesthetic values should adopt flat seedbed type to obtain good shoot system development.