Horticulture Research is a new Open Access, fully peer-reviewed journal which will publish the best and most interesting research focusing on all major horticultural crops from around the world.

The Beta vulgaris complex includes sugar beet, mangel wurzel, Swiss chard, fodder beet, and table beet. Mangel wurzel and fodder beet are considered to be the same general crop type, with the former possessing lower dry matter content (<13%) than the latter. Mangel is likely derived from crosses between table beet and chard, while fodder beet may have a more recent origin, arising from crosses between mangel and sugarbeet. The table beet was derived from the wild sea beet, B. vulgaris (L.) subsp. maritima (L.) Arcang, with small non-spherical roots. Table beet is presently a popular vegetable cultivated for its pigmented roots, typically red but also yellow and other colors. Wild forms were consumed in antiquity mainly for their leaves with roots used medicinally. Beet is referred to in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the first five books of the Hebrew bible, made in Ptolomeic Egypt in the third century BCE. A beet identified as Beta maritima is included in De Material Medicus of Pedanius Dioscorides written in the first century CE, and the first illustrated version of 512, known as the Juliana Anicia Codex, includes an image with non-spherical root. Beet is mentioned in several tractates of the Talmud, a sixth century collection of history and civil law written in Babylonia. Beta maritima possesses supernumerary root cambia, which facilitated selection of swollen rooted forms. The first colored illustration of swollen rooted table beet, B. vulgaris, can be found in the 1515–1517 frescos of Raphael Sanzio and Giovanni Martina da Udine in the Villa Farnesina in Rome. Swollen roots in Roman beet are illustrated and described in the 1587 French herbal Historia Generalis Plantarum of Jacques Dalechamps. Conically shaped beet roots are found in the market painting of Franz Snijders in the 17th century. Various spherical forms of beet root are found in the work of American painter James Peale in 1826. A complete array of beet root types is found in the Benary catalog of 1876. Modern, spherical beet roots were depicted in 1936 by the Russian painter Zinaida Serebriankov, 1936. Artistic and historical representations of table beet suggest that swollen rooted forms have existed during the past five centuries, but conically shaped roots were gradually replaced by spherically shaped roots during this period.

Onions are one of the most important vegetable crops worldwide. However, their production faces many challenges. Genetic improvement is one mechanism to address those challenges. In this review, we discuss recent research pertaining to the diseases Fusarium basal rot and Iris yellow spot, the insect pest onion thrips, onion pungency, and dormancy. Recent research for screening onion bulbs for Fusarium basal rot resistance has resulted in improved screening techniques and germplasm exhibiting less disease when inoculated with the disease-causing pathogen. Improved screening methods have resulted in germplasm exhibiting fewer and less severe Iris yellow spot symptoms when onion thrips and conducive environmental conditions are present. Onion germplasm with less and differing compositions of epicuticular wax on their leaves have shown a nonpreference for thrips feeding and have the potential for developing thrips tolerant cultivars. Conventional breeding efforts and genetic manipulation of the genes producing alliinase and lachrymatory factor synthase has resulted in low pungency, tearless onions. In long-day onions, an annual generation time has been achieved by artificially breaking bulb dormancy early while ensuring proper vernalization has been completed. Genetic improvement of these and many other onion traits will continue and result in better production in the future.

In September 2010, a group of carrot growers in the USA announced a US$25 million marketing campaign to promote ‘cut and peel’ carrots—also known as ‘baby carrots’—with the slogan: “Eat ‘em like junk food”. The campaign is an attempt to break into the US$18 billion snack‐food industry by “[t]aking a page out of junk food's playbook and applying it to baby carrots” (Horovitz, 2010). It is neither the first nor only example of how food producers have tried to attract consumers with healthier meal choices including greens and fruits. Several food companies have recently introduced products that include ‘hidden’ vegetable servings in an attempt to provide vegetable‐based nutrition by stealth. This approach could be beneficial for individual consumers and public health in general. A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control indicated that only 26% of adults in the USA eat vegetables three or more times per day, which is far short of the amount recommended by the US government more than one decade ago (Severson, 2010). Consumer interest in whole foods with enhanced nutritional qualities is at an all‐time high, and more consumers are choosing foods on the basis of their healthy characteristics or direct labels that describe health benefits (Cappellano, 2009). This development is taking place amid increasing interest in locally grown food, farmers’ markets and sustainable farming practices (Clifford, 2010). The promotion of ‘healthy’ agricultural food products has therefore coincided with a surging consumer interest in the health functionality of food, particularly fruits and vegetables. It is difficult to tell whether marketing for health functionality is spurring this interest or vice versa. Nevertheless, today's food market offers many whole foods that are perceived and promoted as ‘health functional’ because of their phytochemical constituents: lycopene, vitamins, isothiocyanates or polyphenols, to name just a few. > The …

Key message: The principal phenotypic determinants of market class in carrot—the size and shape of the root—are under primarily additive, but also highly polygenic, genetic control. The size and shape of carrot roots are the primary determinants not only of yield, but also market class. These quantitative phenotypes have historically been challenging to objectively evaluate, and thus subjective visual assessment of market class remains the primary method by which selection for these traits is performed. However, advancements in digital image analysis have recently made possible the high-throughput quantification of size and shape attributes. It is therefore now feasible to utilize modern methods of genetic analysis to investigate the genetic control of root morphology. To this end, this study utilized both genome wide association analysis (GWAS) and genomic-estimated breeding values (GEBVs) and demonstrated that the components of market class are highly polygenic traits, likely under the influence of many small effect QTL. Relatively large proportions of additive genetic variance for many of the component phenotypes support high predictive ability of GEBVs; average prediction ability across underlying market class traits was 0.67. GWAS identified multiple QTL for four of the phenotypes which compose market class: length, aspect ratio, maximum width, and root fill, a previously uncharacterized trait which represents the size-independent portion of carrot root shape. By combining digital image analysis with GWAS and GEBVs, this study represents a novel advance in our understanding of the genetic control of market class in carrot. The immediate practical utility and viability of genomic selection for carrot market class is also described, and concrete guidelines for the design of training populations are provided.