With a well established reputation of over 150 year of producing innovative new varieties, sugar beet remains one of the most important crops within the KWS portfolio.
At around 200,000 million Euros, worldwide beet variety sales are huge and represent over a third of the company’s annual turnover.
And, as one of just three major breeders of beet varieties, KWS holds number one slot across Europe with an estimated 38% market share.
Furthermore, with two new rhizomania resistant types – Carissima and Sophia - sitting at the top of the new UK Recommended List and, in Mandella, the top yielding traditional variety, the company looks set to significantly grow its UK market share for 2009.
According to European sugar beet product manager, Günter Diener, KWS’ success is down to its established innovation in breeding beet and its very large gene pool.
“Yield remains the number one priority for our breeders,” he says. “However with sugar production in the hands of a smaller number of professionals, we also have to provide varieties that can cope with the pressures of tighter rotations.
“Over the last few years, there has been a big trend towards rhizomania resistant varieties. Now, over 1 million ha of a 5.8 million ha world beet crop is down to rhizomania resistant types,” he points out.
In Western Europe around 75% of the beet growing area is infected and in the UK, the market share of rhizomania restraint varieties looks set to break the current 35% mark as growers start to make their decisions for 2009.”
However, KWS’ aim is to introduce multiple resistance – or tolerance - into all its varieties – not just for rhizomania, but also cercospora leaf spot and beet cyst nematode.
“It is a case of stacking resistances one on top of the other and ironing out any negatives that resistance to one characteristic may bring to another, particularly in terms of yield,” says Günter.
“While rhizomania resistance has been available for around 20 years, it is only in the last 3-4 years that associated penalties in terms of yield loss have been ironed out.”
This is clear to see in Carissima, which tops the 2009 UK Recommended List for yield and in another KWS stable mate Sophia that is just a couple of percentage points behind.
“We’ve been able to do this by constantly introducing what is largely one major resistant gene into a well established, high yielding breeding pool,” says Dr Diener.
While the stability of this gene and its protection against the rhizomania virus remains highly effective, Günter Diener suggests that the next step is to work with transgenics to provide an alternative mechanism of controlling the virus.
In the meantime, UK beet manager, Volker Utesch points out that a resistant variety will not only protect yield if the disease is present, it will also reduce the build up and spread of rhizomania.
“Our advice is that even if you haven’t spotted it yet, if your neighbour has rhizomania, then you should be making the switch to resistant types,” he says.
In five years time, UK growers will almost certainly be planting rhizomania resistant varieties as standard practice,” predicts Volker.
Europe-wide the next most important resistance characteristic under the KWS spotlight is against cercospora – leaf spot disease.
While the UK industry holds its breath, the disease is wreaking havoc in the warmer climes of Italy, Spain and Greece where fungicidal control is limited and cercospora cuts yields by 30-40%.
When infected, the established plant has to divert sugars from the root into replacing leaves which totally die-off. In the worst cases, 2-3 new sets of leaves are needed to maintain plant survival.
KWS’ breeding team has successfully introduced a number of different genes which offer very high resistance to the disease, and while the yield penalty from cercospora resistant varieties is 15%, this does enable production in these warmer climates. It will also provide UK growers with a source of protection should the disease reach our shores.
Probably closer on the UK beet producer’s pest control horizon is beet cyst nematode. Here, KWS is the only breeder offering a degree of tolerance to the pest which is a major concern in Italy, France, Holland, Belgium and Germany.
Encouraged by closer rotations, and also by any oilseed rape in the rotation, beet cyst nematodes – even at low levels – restrict root growth and yields.
Dr Diener reports that even where the pest wasn’t thought to be present at levels that could do damage, that tolerant KWS varieties have produced a 5-10% yield response.
However, where the nematode is at high levels, for example in the North of France, yields can be cut by as much as 50-70% and across Europe KWS sold around 130,000 units last year. This will inevitably increase.
In Italy where about 40% of all KWS sales are in nematode tolerant varieties, trials show that the use of these types maintains the levels of nematodes from one season to the next.
“The tolerance we are currently working with stops the multiplication of the pest and at this stage yields are only restricted by around 5% compared to what would be expected from non-tolerant types on un-infested soils,” he says.
The big increase in the pest within Europe has come as a result of beet production being more highly concentrated around a fewer number of factories.
“So we should probably expect the problem to be more widely seen in the UK, especially on warmer, sandier soils,” suggests Günter.
The company also has varieties in official trials in the UK and expects to see nematode tolerance as a given characteristic in beet varieties across the EU within 10 years.
Alongside these major pest and disease issues, KWS also recognises the importance of other diseases particularly powdery mildew and rust. “We have a general level of resistances in our gene pool and aim for good leaf health as a precursor for high yields,” says Günter Diener.
In the UK, KWS technical advisor, Martin Lainsbury suggests that resistance to these foliar diseases is increasingly important to UK growers looking to prolong green leaf activity and boost sugar yield.
This is where the variety Ace from KWS, with an unbeatable combination of resistance to both rust and powdery mildew, will be of real benefit. “Add onto this the greening effect of a triazole and it should be able to pile on yield, being well suited to later liftings.
Bolting resistance is also an absolute must have property and a high priority for KWS. “We positively select against low bolting resistance and carry out bolting trials drilling potential new beet varieties as soon as we can get onto ground in some of the highest risk areas,” says Günter.
This includes a 5000 plot trial in Humberside every year and a similar testing process on the north coast of France where the crop is drilled in very cold conditions at the end of February.
Seed production is also well isolated from any source of wild beet which produce annual bolters and the company utilises southern hemisphere seasons – in Chile and New Zealand – to further test varieties and also bring speed the seed multiplication process.
Mr Lainsbury highlights Anemona as setting high standards for bolting resistance in rhizomania resistant types. “This has been a key characteristic in keeping a variety that is now 4 years old in the market,” he says. “Growers know it is tried and tested in this respect.”
Integrated Crop Knowledge
KWS maintains that by providing growers with cereals, rape, beet and maize varieties from within its portfolio it is well placed to consider the key characteristics of one crop and variety after another within the crop rotation.
Selection of the right wheat after beet is critical and KWS UK is working on varieties that have the early vigour to cope with the later seedbeds prepared after beet and which are fast to accelerate in the spring and so catch up with their counterparts.
Equally, with around 90% of the beet crop following a cereal, there’s quite a period – normally 7-8 moths - when land lies fallow before the next beet crop is drilled in March or April.
During this time any nitrogen is mineralised and potentially lost – particularly in typical sandy soils where beet is a favourite break.
At the same time, it would make sense to be able to crop the land and so make use of autumn and spring growing periods. In this light, KWS is looking at frost tolerant and highly bolting resistant winter sugar beet types. These could, in theory, push beet crop yields up by 20-30%.
Biogas from Beet
German farmers feed their national grid with electricity generated from bio-gas. At present there’s a network of over 4000 bio-gas plants in the country, 90% of which are fed mainly by maize.
In recent years though, encouraged by R&D carried out by KWS, some 40 of these farms are testing sugar beet as an alternative.
The current view is that a mix of 70% maize and 30% beet is the most efficient means of fermenting high levels of bio-gas – 20% more methane is produced as a result.
In addition the sugar processor Nordsukker is establishing a pilot plant adjacent to its factory in Hannover.
Trials suggest that you need 25-30% less beet DM than you do with maize to produce the same amount of bio-gas.
KWS is the first company with a breeding programme aiming to produce beet that is better tailored to bio-gas production. It expects to have the first varieties from this work available for next season.
