Two brand new sugar beet varieties have been added to the BBRO 2022 Recommended List, whilst the highest yielding variety on the RL, BTS 1915, keeps its lead for the second year running, at 107.3%.
BTS 5770 has one of the best disease resistance packages available, along with a high sugar content.
BTS 3020 offers high yields and excellent bolting resistance as an earlier sowing option. Ron Granger shares his views on what the new varieties bring to sugar beet growers for the coming season. BTS 5770 offers high yields at 101.5% and flexibility in drilling date, showing excellent Early Sown Bolters (ESB) and Normal Sown Bolters (NSB) characteristics. BTS 5770 has a very robust disease resistance profile; with an 8.1 rating for rust, 5.2 for powdery mildew and limited data from both Betaseed and RL trials, suggest it has better than average Cercospora resistance. BTS 3020 joins the RL as the early bird variety, having consistently delivered 3 years of very low counts in the early sowing period before the 5th of March, including data from 2020, which was a higher year for bolting.
BTS 3020 has high adjusted tonne yields of 102.2%, is the third highest yielding variety on the RL, and offers a very good disease resistance package with a rating of (7.5) for rust and 4.6 for powdery mildew. Both varieties are Rhizomania resistant.
BTS 1915 keeps its lead as the highest yielding variety on the RL, for the second year running, at 107.3%. This significant yield advantage of 4.6% over any other variety on the RL – and also as the highest yielding variety in untreated trials at 108.4%, really proves the quality of the genetics behind the variety.
