Landrace Carrots

I've just delved into landrace gardening and I think it's brilliant.  I'm enrolled in Joseph Lofthouse's course and am so excited to get started.  I'm scratching my head over carrots though, trying to figure out how to sample the crop, yet select for desirable traits since you generally pull a carrot before it goes to seed.  

Cut the top inch or so off and grow it on in a saucer of water. When it's rooted, plant it back outside and keep it for seed. Assuming the carrot itself was good.

You can easily cut off the bottom of a carrot, and eat it and replant the  rest of the root. Or cut off a shoulder. Plants posses tremendous resilience.

Another trick, especially if you have suboptimal, wet soil, is to put powdered dry charcoal on the cut end of the carrot. Some breeders also take a core sample of the carrots (with a core sampler), to get the taste of the whole carrot, not only the bottom or top part.