Growing and development particularities in carrot sown in different terms in plain area of Dagestan

Vegetable production in Dagestan is the one of the small-scale, where elementary techniques are used, therefore the vegetable commodity output does not reach a third from total volume produced. With appearance of new irrigation technologies the perspective occurred to raise the productivity of vegetable growing. The use of the drop irrigation improved the vegetable production and yield as well as carrot production. The influence of sowing terms and plant density on features in vegetation phases, photosynthesis activity and water consumption in drip irrigation was studied in carrot ‘Chantenay 2461’ grown on the meadow-chestnut soils medium loamy soils of plain areas in Dagestan. Spring sowing time and summer sowing time with plant density of 0.6; 0.8 and 1.0 million plants per hectare have been studied in accordance with the two-factor experiment. In the course of experiment, it has been shown that not the plant density but sowing terms have essentially influenced upon interphase vegetation period in carrot. It has been also revealed that sowing terms have influenced upon photosynthetic activity, increasing the leaf area by 15.1%, while photosynthesis activety and dry matter content have increased by 7.5% and 4.2% respectively. The maximal parameters of photosynthetic activity were obtained when sowing in the second ten-day period of March with density of 0.8 million plants per hectare, and a yield of 42.2 t/ha. To produce such yield, there is a requirement of irrigation rate should be 2600-2700 m3/ha, on average with 18 watering at rates between 87-165 m3 /ha. Calculations of energy and economic efficiency have shown that when sown in the 2nd decade of March density of 0.8 million plants per hectare gave maximum energy efficiency 6.14, whereas the level of profitability of production expenses was equal to 73.5%.