Crops growing well as harvest approaches

Sugar beet crops look good going into autumn, despite earlier fears of virus yellows, writes Tim Giles, technical manager for SesVanderHave.

But it remains important to be vigilant and monitor crops for new vector borne diseases and old adversaries, with more patches of beet cyst nematode observed this year.

With harvest upon us, my recommendation is to manage your fungicide programme to maximise yields and bank the record sugar prices on this year’s contract.

As plant breeders, we monitor our trial plots and harvest them to gauge the relative performance of different varieties and treatments. We analyse sugar content on the harvester – and measure impurities and other parameters.

This year after the wet winter and late drilling, there are many more gappy crops and our trials were no exception.  This is partly due to a broader spectrum of damping off diseases such as Aphanomyces and Rhizoctonia after the wet conditions.

But there is also a broader spectrum of pests hitting the crop whilst still at a relatively juvenile stage.  In our trials we see first hand the difference between various  treatments, but also freshly processed and over-yeared seed stocks.

Our pre-harvest test digs are show that seed rates and earlier sowing can mitigate the risk to a large extent. While the UK standard seed rate is about 1.15 units/ha, we see best results at 1.25-1.35 units/ha. Our earliest sown trial was late February.

Replicated trials are supplemented with a more diverse range of strip trials in partnership with our Club SV growers across the sugar beet area. This ensures we don’t fixate on a limited number of replicated sites but stay connected to regional, soil type and management types to help select our growers and ourselves select varieties.

With extensive experience, we’re proud and excited to have fast-tracked our new rhizomania tolerant variety Gadwall and beet cyst nematode tolerant variety Hoopoe for UK growers in 2025.