Every sugar beet grower has experienced this at some point: shooters in his sugar beet plot. Shooters regularly appear again this year. A large part is due to the cold and wet spring.
Wim Zandvoort, Sales Manager at SESVanderHave Netherlands, explains which factors promote gunfire and how best to combat potential gunfire.
What are the expectations for shooters this year?
"We started sowing in February/March this year, which is fairly early. This was followed by a cold and wet period. The whole month of April was cold and the average temperature was below 10 degrees. In addition, the phenomenon that we regularly had driving rain in various places with hail here and there, which of course also caused stress. The combination of the cold and those stressful moments means that we have a better chance of seeing quite a few shooters this year."
What factors cause the formation of shooters?
"Temperature is the most important factor. A sugar beet is a biennial crop and to flower it needs a period of cold. The so-called vernalization period. Now if we have a period in the field after sowing of 10 to 40 days with temperatures between two and twelve degrees, then that vernalization occurs. In addition to the vernalization, we have devernalization. This occurs when the temperature is higher than 25 degrees, during a period of at least seven days. Then we talk about devernalization and the The growth of shooters has been inhibited again. But there are also other factors that have an influence. In addition to temperature, we also have genetic predisposition, light intensity, cultivation techniques and finally any circumstances that can lead to stress in the beets. may or may not cause you to get shooters."
Are there bolt-free sugar beet varieties?
"There are no 100% shooter-free sugar beet varieties and we can certainly not guarantee that. You can therefore see that under certain circumstances a variety is resistant and produces few shoots, and that under completely different circumstances the shoots are easily formed and the plant therefore appears sensitive. has to do with many genes within the plant, which ensure that a plant will or will not shoot.What we do know is that rhizoctonia varieties are generally sensitive to bolting, hence the advice to always sow these varieties a little later than the others common varieties."
Do you have any additional advice for growers?
"Remove shoots if they occur in a plot and keep doing this until August. Until that period, the plant can produce seed that is germinable. This then produces the so-called weed beets or wild beets in subsequent cultivation. In addition, a double dash for people with Conviso® beets, if you have chosen to do so, if you leave bolters in here, you will get bolters containing seeds that are resistant to Conviso® (the Conviso® One herbicide) and will have a chemical control of your weed beets in a sugar beet progeny are no longer possible."
Find out here the Dutch sugar beet varieties that you can order in the early order of 2021-2022.