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The root vegetables: beet, carrot, parsnip, and turnip.

Abstract
 The main aim of this chapter is to identify key physiological factors underlying the initiation and growth of the storage root of beet, carrot, parsnip, and turnip. Additionally, life processes including dormancy, vernalization requirement, flowering, the production of secondary metabolites, and various aspects of growth are examined for each of these crops. Application of molecular biological techniques to horticultural crops has allowed for the identification of a number of genes underlying key plant processes such as root elongation and growth, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, and flowering. As these crops turned into biennial plants, they adopted traits associated with cultivated crops, including cold hardiness, vernalization requirements, the ability to store for lengthy periods during the postharvest period, increases in sugars and decreases in astringent secondary metabolites, and increases in nutritional value. While these crops do not benefit from an extremely large research community as do other staple crops, significant advances in understanding of their form and function have taken place in the last two decades since the publication of this original volume. Yet much remains to be done.