Harvesting of carrots

Carrots are mostly harvested manually by pulling up the roots at the leaves as long as the soil is moist and soft. If the soil has dried, it will be necessary to use either a spade or similar tool to loosen the soil and harvest the roots. Carrots are usually ready for harvesting 60-85 days after sowing. Mature roots should be orange-colored internally down to the blunt tip. Average yield is 20-30t/ha.

Freshly harvested carrots must be sorted to remove defective roots; undersized, broken, diseased, green core, split/cracked and sun burnt carrots should also be discarded. Careful handling is necessary to avoid bruising and tip breakage during these grading steps.