Sugar Beet

The sugar beet is a type of Betterave cultivated for its fleshy root used for the production of the Sucre.

Botany

Scientific name: Beta vulgaris L. Family of the Chénopodiacées, tribe of the Cyclolobae (according to the traditional Classification) or family of the Amaranthacées (according to the phylogenetic classification).

Principal cultivated varieties

The sugar beets are of white color and very buried. There exist many varieties. The principal selection criteria are the output of the roots, sugar the yield, the purity of the juices, resistance to diseases such as the Rhizomanie, the brown Rhizoctone and the tolerance with the Nématode S. Of other criteria is important such as resistance to the rise with seed.

Description

The cultivated beet is a bi-annual plant:

first year, vegetative phase: development of the sheets and constitution of the fleshy root, accumulation of reserves out of sugar, it is also the phase of culture;
second year: montaison and flowering, production of seeds.

Use

Sugar beet : production of Sugar, and secondarily of alcohol and ethanol - fuel; by-products: the Mélasse which contains sugar 50% more is a food appétent for the animals, the Pulpe of beet, residue of the extraction of sugar is generally dehydrated for the same use; the molasses are also used with the production of Levure as bakery; the collets and the sheets are useful for the animal feed or are restored on the ground.

The 2-3 butane diol is derived from the starch and sugar beet.

Economy

The culture occupies approximately 7 million hectares in the world, especially in Europe of North and with the the United States;

Worldwide production (FAO 2002):

Sugar beet: 246,5 million tons, including 120 for the European Union;

France is the first world beet sugar producer. This culture is concentrated in the north of the country.

In the European Union, the culture of sugar beet is regulated within the framework of the common agricultural policy (CAP). Each country has a production quota authorized in lower part of which the price is guaranteed, on a level higher than world rate.

Production of sugar beet

Culture of sugar beet

The sugar beet is the first industrial crop in France.

In France, one sows beet mid-March after the frosts of winter; it needs six months hot and sunny to complete the formation of the root; she likes the grounds rich, deep, fume well. Until in the Years 1970, after the Sowing, it was necessary to carry out “thinning”, i.e. with the elimination of the surplus seedlings. The seeds are naturally grouped by three (in fruits called triakenes). They are seed S multigermes, except if they were prepared. For this time, thanks to the genetic selection, the seeds have been from now on monogermes (only one seed per cluster). They are sown in place, seed by seed, thanks to specific Semoir S.

The beet seed being very small and containing very little reserve, this culture is very sensitive to the Battance. Indeed, during sowing, the seed is hidden to 2-3 cm of depth, when the Cotylédon S point on the surface, the seedling with completion hydrolized its reserves, it thus has an urgent need of sun to begin the Photosynthèse (and energy production). If it meets an obstacle like a crust of battance, it cannot face there and the seedling dies.

The nitrogenized Fertilization must be without excess under penalty of harming the sugar yield. The beet has a consumption known as “of luxury” because it draws Potassium enormously (because of its origin Halophyte), its requirements out of potash are thus high (approximately 4 kg per ton of roots). It requires grounds with basic pH.

The emission of the sheets follows a phylochrome of 40 °C day. The maximum number of sheet does not seem to be limited. Separately the two first, the sheets is placed according to a propeller of row 5 (3rd and 8th are superimposed).

The Saccharose (C12) is directly produced in the sheets. This one is tiny room in Glucose (C6) in the body-wells at the time of the growth, then stored (if surplus) in the root. The high content in sugar is a big factor of the final quality of harvest, and the purchase price depends on it, it is expressed in % and varies today between 16 and 20.

The enlargement of the root starts early, the “moult of beet” corresponds to an enlargement of the heart (differentiation of Xylème and tertiary Phloème secondary then) which causes to burst the bark which cracks. The average output varies from 60 tons to 90 tons of roots to the hectare.

The furrow saccarifère, a folding up of the root, is in the collimator of the Semencier S because it hangs an important ground mass during pulling up. It thus makes decrease the cleanliness (its quality and thus its price) of the goods delivered to the industrialist.

The harvest of sugar beet is mechanized, using combined machines (Grubbing plow-stripper-screw cutting machine).

Enemies of sugar beet

Its principal enemies are the Puceron S vectors of the jaundice, the fly of the beet (pégomyie), the Taupin S and of the diseases like the Rhizomanie, the Cercosporiose, the Oïdium, the Ramulariose and the black Pied.

Lastly, recent danger to sugar beet in France: another beet species, extremely invading, the maritime Beet, is spreading itself on the littoral since 2003 while making disappear all the other plants, in particular on the coast around the village of Audresselles (Pas-de-Calais). Pollens of this variety modify genetically seeds of sugar beet, and return to the pivots resulting from this crossing not sugar producers in sufficient quantity to be exploited. The Faculty of Science of Lille sent researchers to Audresselles to study the phenomenon and the means of fighting it.

History

The principal beet races were described as of the Moyen-âge, in particular by Matthiole. The origin of the food use of the roots of beet seems to be in the large plain which extends from the Germany to the Russia

In 1600, Olivier de Serres, in the theater of agriculture and mesnage of the fields written:

“ a species of pastenades is the beet, which from to us Italy does not have a long time. It is an extremely red root, adzes gross, whose sheets are white beets, and all that to eat good, installed in kitchen: even the root is arranged between the delicate meats, whose juice which it returns while cooking, similar to sugar syrup, is very beautiful to see for its vermilion color. ”

He sought the first to extract sugar from beets but did not succeed in finding a process profitable.

In 1747, a German, Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, had succeeded in extracting the beet sugar, but the first industrial sugar extraction was the work of a French, Benjamin Delessert, in 1812; it is Napoleon 1st which had encouraged research in this field, the blockade of the Empire Frenchwoman exerted by the British navy, having cut the Europe of the cane sugar resources of the the Antilles.

Internal bond

External bonds

www.labetterave.com, the gate of sugar beet
ITB, technical Institute of beet, Paris, France
Royal Institute for the improvement of beet, Tienen, Belgium
Site of reference on mangel-wurzel

See too

Cannolo

Beats-smg: Sokrėnis ronkelis Simple: Sugar beet

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