All Sugar Beet Related Press Releases
- Caution Advised Over Frost Trial Results
- First Double Resistance Rhizo-Beet Variety Makes New Recommended List
Caution Advised Over Frost Trial Results... But Disease Resistance Could Be A Key Says Breeder
While seven of the top ten least damaged varieties were from the KWS plant breeding stable, the company’s sugar beet manager, Simon Witheford is quick to point out that this is one observation from one year.
While the company does have a winter sugar beet plant breeding programme and is testing the over-wintering potential of varieties in harsh German conditions, we cannot make claims for frost resistance from current UK varieties.
In our view the results could be more to do with leaf retention in the absence of disease. Some of the least damaged varieties in the Broom’s Barn work – such as Rosalinda KWS and Mandella, which are second and third ranked in the list - have superb disease resistance ratings.
Rosalinda – the current front runner for yield, for example, has the highest rust and mildew scores of 7 and 9 respectively and this will help retain green leaf.
Anecdotal farm evidence this year backs this. Growers have told us that those crops that were recoverable after the penetrating cold conditions were those which had some sheltered protection from a good leaf cover.
It could well be that the insulation these more resistant types provided, has helped, but only up to a point and there is no doubt that a strong and timely fungicide programme is also good practice and will help protect the leaf.
So, while growers might be looking for a variety that can mitigate against the recurrence of a repeat early winter close-down next season, no breeder will push his or her variety as a complete frost-resistor.
It does though make sense, as always, to select varieties that have the best disease resistance and it could well be that this will make a difference in some seasons of being able to rescue a crop or having to plough it down.
Differences of 10% root damage from Rosalinda KWS compared to say, Aimanta at 40%, would be the difference between harvesting an acceptable crop and no crop at all, and growers may like to use the data to consider selections for their later liftings, though in extreme cold conditions any sugar beet variety will eventually succumb.
KWS will be examining the frost resistance characteristics of its beet in future trials, testing material in the harsh East German conditions where this sort of winter we have just experienced is more commonplace.
