Carrot quality: progress and challenges for breeding and production

Carrot is an essential vegetable produced and consumed worldwide. If yield and resistance to pests and diseases are major production concerns and breeding traits, product quality becomes more and more an issue, driven by society evolution and consumer demand. Product quality includes visual, nutritional, sensory attributes. Only a few of quality criteria are studied but most are influenced by agro-environmental conditions and controlled by a complex genetic determinism, making difficult to valorize quality in production or select for in breeding programs. The present article covers the various quality attributes, addresses the issue of plasticity/adaptability of carrot cultivars and the influence environmental and stresses on product quality, presents the genetic basis of quality and the tools to facilitate quality measurements, in order to help master product quality both at breeding and production levels.