12 armed carrot

OldSalt

has anyone seen a carrot like this, I've been growing carrots for years, but this year all my carrots are short fat and stumpy may with more than one are. This carrot has 12 arms, and weights 2lb 2oz

Pete.8

I've not grown carrots for a long time, but when I used to the usual reason for a multi-armed carrot was either that the soil they were grown in has recently been manured/fertilized (so too rich for them) and/or the soil is very stony.

Gonna be tricky peeling that one

a1154

Thanks for posting Fairway, you gave me a good laugh! 

Lyn

Don’t peel it,  just cut  its legs and arms off and scrape them,  they’ll taste good.

Dovefromabove

I sent your picture to my brother who is a carrot farmer ... he says it's a special variety ...  an attempt to grow a special sort for decorating carrot cakes.

Another suggestion is that it's been crossed with an octopus to produce a carrot for communal family dining for rabbits ... a bit like everyone having a chicken drumstick 

Dovefromabove

My brother has just emailed with an explanation 

“The real reason is a particular type of nematodes 😡in the soil. 

They need to not grow 🥕 carrots on that piece of land for many years. 

The little bu**ers nip off the growing point so the carrots sends out other growing  points and then as these get eaten the plant repeats the action.”

There you are…. that’s from the man who grows carrots for Wrose and Sainsbugs etc. 

OldSalt

Thanks for the info, I always rotate my crops but this years weather has made growing really bad, carrots all deformed like the one in the picture, beetroot weighing up to 7lb each, I chopped these all up last week and composted them, potatoes and tomatoes all got the blight etc and the Badgers bless them have eated all the sweet peppers off my 20 plants, I'm going to look into the "nematodes" you suggested, thats a great possibility.

Dovefromabove

If it is the nematodes that are causing it there's nothing you can do I'm afraid ... there is no treatment available to the home gardener at the moment. ... the  carrot root knot nematoes must have built up in the soil ... so for now it's a case of growing your carrots elsewhere.  

Lyn

Dovefromabove said:.

Another suggestion is that it's been crossed with an octopus to produce a carrot for communal family dining for rabbits ... a bit like everyone having a chicken drumstick 

Puts a whole new take on genetically modified. 
7lb beetroots,  couldn’t you have pulled them earlier,  I pick at golf ball size.