The Effects of Seed Treatment, Sowing date, Cultivar and Harvest date on the Yield and Quality of Sugar Beet

摘要

Trials were carried out at Lyons Estate Research Farm during 1998 on sugar beet (BetaVulgaris). The commercially available seed treatment ‘Advantage’ was tested across 3sowing dates, 4 commercially available cultivars and 4 harvest dates. Trials werecarried out in a factorial arrangement and subject to standard statistical analysis. Dataon emergence, ground cover, yield and quality was analysed.Percentage emergence of seed was satisfactory in all experiments. The benefit of‘Advantage’ treatment during the emergence stage of growth was clearly seen in alltrials. On average ‘Advantage’ seed emerged 2-3 days earlier than untreated seed andreached the target population (>75,000 plants/ha 4 days sooner than the control seed.During the growing season, ground cover was measured until complete cover wasreached. In the trials it was less clear as to the benefits of using the treatment‘Advantage’, as it was seldom statically different from control seed. As yields can berelated to the radiation intercepted, it is not surprising that there were not largedifferences in yields.Delaying sowing date resulted in decreased yields of clean beet, sugar and extractablesugar. The two triploid varieties, Libra and Accord gave better yields of clean beet,sugar and extractable sugar than the two diploid cultivars Zulu and Celt. Delayingharvesting gave increased yields of clean beet, sugar and extractable sugar. The‘Experimental’ seed treatment was not superior to the ‘Advantage’ treatment.In only one of the experiments was ‘Advantage’ better than the control treatment inrespect of yield of clean beet, in the time of harvest trial. This was not reflected in yieldof sugar or extractable sugar. In all other situations, there were no differences between‘Advantage’ and the control treatments. There was no benefit from using ‘Advantage’seed in the current experiments. However earlier sowing dates require investigationwith pre-treated seed.