100 years of the Sugar Beet Research Station of Rovigo (Italy)

摘要

October 3-4, 2014 marks the centen-niary celebration of the Rovigo Sugar Beet Research Station, likely the first official research center devoted to the crop.At the beginning of the 1900s, sugar beet was rapidly expanding in Italy thanks to favourable factors, such as increased domestic sugar demand, the reduced acreage of other crops andavailability of manpower. The first sugar factory went into operation in 1888 and demonstrated, after a number of failures, the possibility of cultivating sugar beet in areas warmer than central Europe. Sugar factories spread rapidly at the end of the 1800s.