Oakes
SUGAR BEET VARIETY PERFORMANCE TRIAL
W. Albus,
L. Besemann and H. Eslinger
Although sugarbeets are primarily a dryland crop in the
Red River Valley about 6,500 acres were irrigated in eastern ND and about
20,000 acres in western Minnesota in 2006.
About another 15,000 acres were grown under irrigation in northwestern
ND. Top producing varieties under
dryland production may or may not be the best varieties under irrigation. As quality is very important in the
processing of sugarbeets it becomes important to test these parameters in an
irrigated environment. The objective of
this trial was to evaluate irrigated sugar beets for yield and quality
characteristics. We would like to thank
American Crystal Sugar Company for their support. A special thanks goes to Dr. Allan Cattanach, agronomist with
American Crystal for his advice in growing the crop. We would also like to thank the NDSU personnel Lenny Luecke,
Aaron Carlson and Norman Cattanach for their help during harvest.
Table 22. Results of the Oakes Irrigation Research
Site 2006 sugar beet variety trial.
Soil: |
Hecla sandy loam and Maddock
sandy loam; pH=6.7; 2.4% organic matter; soil-P and soil-K was very high;
soil-S was high. |
Previous crop: |
2005 - field corn; 2004 -
cabbage, carrot, edible bean, field pea, mustard, millet, soybean, sweet corn
and wheat.; 2003 - potato. |
Seedbed Preparation: |
Fall disk. Disk on April 24. Multiweed (field cultivate) twice on April
24 to smooth the seedbed and incorporate fertilizer. |
Planting: |
Planted on April 25 in 20-inch
rows at 89,000 seeds per acre and were later thinned to 41,500 plants per
acre. |
Plots: |
Plots were 17 ft long by 7 ft
(4 rows) wide. There were four reps. |
Fertilizer: |
On April 10, broadcast 20 lbs N/acre, 45 lbs P2O5/acre,
51 lbs K2O/acre and 13 lbs S/acre as 21-0-0-24, 11-52-0 and
0-0-60. Applied 50 lbs N/acre on April 18 and stream-bar 30 lbs N/acre
on June 7 as 28-0-0. Stream-bar
30 lbs N/acre to reps 1 and 3 and 80 lbs N/acre to reps 2 and 4 as
28-0-0 on June 21. Stream-bar N
resulted in significant leaf burn on the June 21 application. |
Irrigation: |
Overhead sprinkler irrigation
as needed. |
Pest control: |
Weeds were controlled with
Nortron (5 pt/acre on April 28), Select 2E + MSO + AMS (8 oz/acre + 1 pt/acre
+ 3 lbs/acre on June 23) and by hand weeding. Headline (9 oz/acre on August 28) and Eminent (12 oz/acre and 13
oz/acre on September 2 and September 8) was used for disease control. |
Harvest: |
Harvested on October 18. Harvest area was 17 feet of the center two
rows. The beets were mechanically
topped and lifted and then hand picked, counted and weighed. A sample from each plot was taken for
analysis. |
Although the sugar beet varieties were grown at 150
and 200 lb/acre of soil plus fertilizer N, replication was not great enough for
that comparison, so these comments refer to only the 150 lb N/ac
rate. Stand establishment was a little
erratic as shown by final stands ranging from 31,209 to 41,971
plants/acre. Yields ranged from 32.6 to
37.0 ton/acre, which was not significantly different. Magnum’s yield may have been lowered by a late season Cercospora
infection. Magnum had the highest sugar
percentage and highest recoverable sugar/ton (RST). The highest recoverable sugar/acre (RSA) was recorded with VDH
46519 due to its higher overall yield.
Despite having the lowest stand, VDH 66566 was second in yield, sugar
percentage, RST and RSA. Sugar
percentage was very good and sugar lost to molasses was low at 1.3 percent, for
the high yields. This resulted in
excellent recoverable sugar per ton.
Spring soil tests showed 20 lb N/acre nitrate-N at the 0-24’
depth compared to 18 lb N/acre in the fall test. Evidently, a total of 150 lb/acre of fertilizer plus soil N in
this sandy loam soil with an organic matter content of 2.4 percent produced
high yields without loss of crop quality.
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Table 22. Results of
the Oakes Irrigation Research Site 2006 sugar beet variety trial.
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Variety |
Yield |
Sugar |
Sugar loss |
Recoverable Sugar |
Sodium |
Potassium |
Amino |
Stand |
|
|
ton/acre |
------%----- |
lb/ton |
lb/A |
-----------ppm------------- |
plants/A |
|||
37.0 |
17.3 |
1.2 |
321 |
12141 |
70 |
1907 |
417 |
41971 |
|
VDH 66566 |
35.3 |
17.9 |
1.2 |
335 |
11691 |
79 |
1943 |
366 |
31209 |
Seedex
Alpine |
34.4 |
17.5 |
1.2 |
326 |
11500 |
63 |
1878 |
395 |
38896 |
Seedex
Magnum |
33.3 |
18.1 |
1.2 |
338 |
11194 |
73 |
1859 |
369 |
39665 |
Crystal
R 434 |
34.7 |
17.4 |
1.4 |
321 |
10959 |
107 |
1951 |
520 |
42279 |
HH
317 |
32.6 |
17.8 |
1.3 |
329 |
10644 |
91 |
2024 |
429 |
37820 |
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|
Experimental
mean |
34.5 |
17.7 |
1.2 |
328 |
11355 |
80 |
1927 |
416 |
38589 |
LSD
(0.05) |
NS |
0.3 |
0.1 |
6 |
NS |
18 |
NS |
42 |
5688 |
C.V.
(%) |
7.8 |
1.2 |
5.8 |
2 |
8 |
19 |
5 |
9 |
12 |
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