Sugar beet

Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. Vulgaris, Altissima Group)

Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. Vulgaris, Altissima Group) is an agricultural crop and belongs to the family Amaranthaceae ( Amaranthaceae ). Previously, she was made ​​the goosefoot family ( Chenopodiaceae ), these are now included in the fox tail plants. How fodder beet and beetroot, it is a cultivar of Commons beet ( Beta vulgaris subsp. Vulgaris). It originates from the wild beet or wild beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. Maritima ) and has been breeding on a greatly increased content of sugar (sucrose (table sugar ) ) towards change.

The sugar beet is the most important sugar plant of the temperate latitudes. In the manufacture of sugar by-products are used as animal feed or substrate for fermentations.

Increasingly, the importance of sugar as a renewable resource, eg for the production of bioethanol and biogas.

Biology

Sugar beet is a counting of the Fremdbefruchtern biennial plant. So it forms only in the second year of an inflorescence and seeds.

In the first year they developed in the vegetative stage of development for an aboveground rosette of about 20 wide -area, up to 30 cm long, deciduous leaves and the root thickens into a white taproot. The sugar beet is a taprooted, its roots can be up to five feet deep reach into the ground.

The harvest takes place during the first growing season, since in this period the storage of reserve materials is carried out and thus the sugar content that determines the economic benefits is highest. The time of harvest the turnip has a weight of about 700 to 1200 g, the highest sugar content is concentrated in the middle part of the turnip.

In the second year, the generative phase, produced an approximately 1.5 m tall branched inflorescence with inconspicuous five petals. By late frosts or by longer periods with temperatures 0-8 ° C after sowing a vernalization can be done in the first year, which leads to the undesirable stem elongation. These have a disturbing effect on the mechanical harvesting and cause reduced yields because the taproot remain small and thus provide a low sugar yield.

Since they also left behind hundreds of viable seeds in the soil, can survive in the soil for long without losing their ability to germinate, they also endanger the future beet growing in the same area. They must be removed before flowering.

The sugar beet is cultivated mainly in the temperate climate area. Main distribution area is Europe, but also in the USA, Canada, North Africa and in some Asian countries it is grown. In Europe, the cultivation of Finland carried out to the Mediterranean countries. Unlike in Central and Northern Europe, sugar beet however, is not seeded in the Mediterranean countries in the spring, but in the months of October and November. The harvest is then in the subsequent summer.

For a high yield sugar beet requires moderate temperatures, lots of light, a steady water supply and deep nutrient-rich soils with good water flow. The water demand of sugar beet is high, especially in July and August. In the juvenile stage the plant is sensitive to frost, frosts below - 5 ° C lead to the death of plants.

History

Andreas Sigismund Marggraf The chemist had in 1747 for the first time the sugar content of the beet after. 1801, after the successful selection of the white Silesian beet, the physical chemist Franz Carl Achard also created the foundations of industrial sugar production. The first beet sugar factory in the world was created in Cunern (Silesia ).

Around 1850 began with the introduction of Wanzleben plow ( plow deep culture ) and the drill the mechanization of sugar beet production.

Formation

The sugar beet was born towards the middle of the 18th century by growth from the beet, which has been specifically selected for a high sugar content. This enabled the sugar content of 8 % to 16% is initially ( in 1800 ) can be increased. Today's sugar beet have a sugar content of 18 to 20%. Sugar is a high-energy product of photosynthesis and serves the plant as a storage substance.

Cultivation

The cultivation of sugar beet is where the conditions allow it, very rewarding, but places particularly high demands on the quality, fertilization and cultivation of the soil. The drier the air, the more demands the turnip a deep, fresh soil with ample nutrient supply. Most suitable humic loam and loess soils, unsuitable are poor, dry sandy soils, tough clay soil and all flat-bottomed, wet soils.

Since the sugar is not compatible with itself, it can not be grown on the same field again in the following growing season, but it is a perennial crop rotation required. Not as preceding crops, however, are some plant species that are affected by similar pests or fungi such as sugar beet, such as cabbage or spinach because of the significant increase of the beet -infesting nematodes.

In order to make the cultivation of sugar beet as economically as possible, growers an intensive consultation today (eg Agricultural Information sugar beet ) are available. The advice covers the areas of soil cultivation, varieties, fertilization, plant protection, harvesting, storage and so on.

Seed

Sowing before the mechanization of agriculture

One builds the sugar beet like after fertilized winter wheat, the stubble crashes as soon as possible, deep plowing after a few weeks and harrow and rolled in the spring. If you want to fertilize fresh, the fertilizer must be brought up very early in the fall to the ground. Of the mineral fertilizers are phosphates in the first row. As the growing season lasts 26 to 30 weeks you sow as early as possible, in late March or early April and although on flat land or in combs, in rows or in pits as Dippelsaat. The richer the bottom, the narrower must be built in order to do not get too large beet. In the Row trial you are at a distance of 30-50 cm, the Tüpfelsaat is typically performed with the Dibbelmaschine. You need this 9-10, in which seed drilling 15-20 kg seeds per hectare. Any crusting of the soil before rising of the seed is removed by driving over it with a spiked roller, later to hack two or three times and finally takes a slight Behäufeln. After the first chop the beets are isolated to 18-20 cm, and you make this easier in the Row trial by across pervades with the horse hoe. Of the remaining plants are all pulling from the mightiest and places it between the rows to prevent the emergence of the weeds.

Sowing by modern standards

Sowing takes place in Central Europe in mid-March to early May. Technically consuming processed ( pelleted ) seed is applied as a precision drilling with Drill in rows spaced 45 cm or 50 cm and a depth of 2 to 3 cm, while a portfolio of seven to eleven plants per m² is reached. Gleichstandsaat currently fails mainly due to the existing Toys and because row spacings in the range of 30 cm and plant spacing of 30 cm in the row, cause problems with blockages of the harvester by beet and weeds.

Recently, beets are occasionally also in Schlitzsaat also sown Streifenfrässaat or called strip -till. It is a particular method of the precision drilling, wherein the soil is loosened only in the seed row to a depth of 25 cm. This is done by zinc coulters, which are disposed in front of the drill. The advantages over the conventional mulch with seedbed preparation in the spring after initial findings are a more uniform emergence of the seed, high energy efficiency and low labor costs per hectare as a good protection against soil erosion. Perhaps this method also improves water efficiency in the vegetation phase.

Harvest

The harvest takes place from mid-September until mid- December, with a later harvest in good weather has advantages, since the sugar content increases with longer growing season. The beet harvest time is also called beet campaign.

Previously sugar beets were harvested by hand. Man cut head and leaves with a Köpfschippe now and then stabbed the beets out or they stood out, then removed with a knife head and leaves. Was used to jump out a spade, a fork, the beet puller or the beet lifter. The beet leaves were used as cattle feed. The beets were pricked out exempt from adhering to them earth. The cleaned beets were then loaded either by hand or with a beet fork onto a trailer and transported mostly in the sugar factory for further processing by rail.

As a substitute for the pure handwork later pulled by draft animals devices came on. First and foremost here is the Köpfschlitten to cut off the head and the beet leaves and attached to the carts a Grindel plow Rübenrodekörper to call for releasing the beets out of the ground.

Even today, the harvesting process is done in three steps, the removal of the foliage and the turnip head, the retrieval of the turnip out of the ground and picking up the turnip from the ground. There is the opportunity to do the first two steps of a machine and collecting a second machine, or all the steps with a machine, the beet harvesters perform. These machines are available in either a self-propelled variant or to operate a tractor. The leaves of the beets are equal chopped when removing and then either left on the field as fertilizer or directly loaded onto a trailer and used as feed.

The yields are 400-700 dt ( dt = quintal = 100 kg) of beet per hectare of arable land, from this set can be around 10 tonnes of sugar production. The total energy input for the production of one ton of sugar in this case is approximately 11 200 MJ (according to the calorific value of around 267 kg of crude oil, see oil equivalent ), of this amount, approximately 2500 MJ (equivalent to 60 kg of oil equivalent ) in the field of production ( for tillage, fertilization, seed, plant protection and harvesting ) and an average of 600 MJ (corresponding to 14 kg of oil equivalent ) for the transport of beet cleared from the field to the sugar factory. The energy content of a ton of sugar is 16 800 MJ, up by 50% above the cost of manufacture.

Use

The sugar beet is grown as a raw material for the industrial production of sugar (sucrose). The sugar yield is nearly 16 % of the beet mass used.

As a by-product in the harvest of beet leaf, which is incorporated mostly as green manure back into the ground. To a lesser extent, the beet leaf is also used as feed for cattle.

Another industrial by-product is a with about 4% of the processed beet mass incurred, entzuckerter by crystallization, but is still very sugary, nutrient- rich syrup, molasses. Furthermore, it serves the industrial production of alcohol by fermentation, but also as a culture medium for the biotechnological production of other products, such as baker's yeast or citric acid in white biotechnology. It is also used in the feed industry. The resultant from the processing of the molasses, sugar-free as far as possible by-product is vinasse, which is also used as a feed additive, and fertilizers.

The leached by the sugar beet pulp extraction still have a high sugar and energy content and are therefore used as feed for ruminants in particular. 100 kg of processed beet fall about 20 to 22 kg pressed chips with about 20 % dry matter content to.

Sugar syrup ( sugar beet syrup ), partially also molasses is eaten as a spread, especially in the growing areas. But sugar beet molasses is also Germany's commercially available.

Besides the use as animal fodder beet are increasingly used as renewable raw material (in short: Nawaro ), eg for the production of ethanol (bioethanol ) are used. Similarly, sugar beet stand out as high-energy and schnellvergärbares substrate for the production of biogas.

Economic Importance

The proportion of sugar beet as a source of raw materials for the production of sugar has declined in recent decades. In the marketing year 2005/ 06 were 109.4 million tonnes ( 74%) of sugarcane and 38.3 million tonnes ( 26%) produced from sugar beets. In the 1960s, the ratio stood at 57% of pipe and 43% beet sugar. The absolute quantity produced beet sugar remained relatively stable due to an overall strong growth in sugar production. In the EU, about 112 million tons of beets per year are produced, from which the sugar industry wins 13-15 million tonnes of granulated sugar. In almost all European countries sugar is produced from sugar beet. Here are Germany, with about 400,000 hectares, as well as France and Poland the main producers. Almost 90 percent of the sugar consumed in Europe today comes from locally grown. This is due in large part to protective tariffs of the EU, favoring the local beet sugar compared to the cheaper cane sugar ( see protectionism ). This increases the cost of sugar to European consumers.

Herbicide -resistant varieties

Three years after the introduction of herbicide- resistant variety in the USA in 2009 to 95 per cent ( 450,000 hectares) of genetically modified sugar beets were grown there.