Baseline information on agricultural practices in the EU ... - Europabio

4 Preparation
4.1 Seeds
Breeding beets for sugar production has taken place since the late 18 th century. By the beginning of
the 19 th century beets had a sugar content of about 6%. Selections probably originated from fodder
beets grown in Poland from a type known as White Silesian.
The goal of breeding programmes is to develop sugar beet varieties with higher root yield and higher
sugar content, better extraction yield (juice purity), higher and more uniform seed emergence
percentages, seedling vigour, lower tendency to “bolt”. Also important are the physical attributes of the
root well adapted to mechanical harvesting. The root shape and a smoother surface resulted in a
reduction of soil adherence (less soil tare). Varieties are needed with better resistance to pests and
diseases (especially virus yellows, mildew, rhizomania, rhizoctonia and beet cyst nematodes), better
storability including tolerance to frost for in-field storage, and the ability to perform well over the wide
range of environments and harvest times. Today, rhizomania tolerant varieties have been developed
for all countries affected by this disease.
In more recent years characteristics such as drought tolerance (better water use efficiency), nitrogen
use efficiency, or stress tolerance in general are becoming important as well. A number of drier than
average years since 2003 has resulted in losses of beet yields on soils where the crop has been
subject to drought stress.
European legislation requires that every variety undergoes official trials for DUS (Distinctness,
Uniformity, Stability) and VCU (Value for Cultivation and Use) before commercialisation. The
guidelines for the VCU and DUS tests are summarised in Directive 2002/53/EC 3 . For sugar beet the
protocol for distinctness, uniformity and stability tests of the Administrative Council of the Community
Plant Variety Office (CPVO) is the CPVO-TP SUGARBEET/1 4 . This protocol, however, is applicable
to sugar beet components, not to commercial hybrids.
The common catalogue is based on the national lists of the Member States. All Member States
compile one or more national catalogues of the varieties accepted for certification and marketing in
their territory. The implementation of VCU testing by the Member States might be different resulting in
different admission levels between countries. Differences exist in the preparation of the seed, trial layout/field
protocol, evaluated (quality) characteristics, methods of analysis, etc.
New applications are tested against existing reference varieties, which will give a clear estimation of
gain of selection over years. These ‘reference’ varieties will be replaced over time to adapt the level of
performance to the new developed varieties.
Apart from the essential criteria for beet variety recommendation, such as root yield and sugar
content, other criteria such as early or late maturing, resistance/tolerance to specific pests and/or
diseases, nutrient conversion efficiency and internal quality are also evaluated (CIBE-CEFS, 2010).
Usually 3 years of testing are needed on several locations representing the main sugar beet growing
areas.
It is also possible to test for organic sugar beet varieties in some Member States (e.g. Belgium,
KBIVB).
Most sugar beet varieties today are diploid hybrids with 2n = 18 chromosomes, derived from a cross
between diploid male sterile female plants and diploid pollinators.
Hybrids are made using a system of cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS). In this system, normal pollen
development is disrupted by an unknown mechanism associated with a defect in the mitochondria.
Mitochondria are inherited maternally; and therefore, only the seed parent will contain a sterile
3
Council Directive 2002/53/EC of 13 June 2002 on the common catalogue of varieties of agricultural
plant species. OJ L 193, 20.7.2002, p.1-15.
4
http://www.cpvo.europa.eu/documents/TP/agricoles/TP_sugarbeet-1_BETA_VULGARIS.pdf
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