Carrot is a Konya crop almost to the exclusion of anywhere else — the Beyşehir and Kaşınhanı districts account for the large majority of Turkish production, on deep sandy loams that let the root grow straight and lift clean.
Nantes-type varieties dominate: cylindrical, blunt-tipped, smooth-skinned, deep orange, with a small core and high sugar. The crop lifts from August through November and holds in cold store at 0 °C and 95 to 98 % humidity — higher than anything else we store — to give supply almost year-round.
The detail buyers miss is ethylene. Carrot exposed to ethylene develops isocoumarin and turns genuinely bitter. It must never be stored or shipped with apple, and this is the most common cause of a bitterness complaint on an otherwise sound load.