Sugar beet

Sugar beet is a cultivated form of Beta vulgaris grown for the sucrose stored in its enlarged root and hypocotyl. It belongs to the same species as chard, beetroot and fodder beet. Unlike sugarcane, which stores sugar in its stems, sugar beet supplies the sugar industry with a harvested underground storage organ.

Growth and cultivation

The plant is biennial. During its first growing season it builds up the root and stores reserves that can support flowering in the following season. For sugar production it is cultivated as a vegetative crop. In many producing countries it is sown in spring, and sugar accumulates from an early stage of growth.

The yield depends on the crop's capture and use of sunlight, water and nitrogen. Jaggard and colleagues' review of crop physiology examined these interacting constraints and the possibility of lengthening the growing season through autumn sowing. Its discussion concerns resource use and potential yield, rather than a guarantee that one planting calendar is suitable everywhere.

Development and uses

Modern sugar beet developed through selection from fodder beets in eighteenth-century Silesia. The beet-sugar industry subsequently expanded across Europe and into other temperate agricultural regions. A successful commercial American factory opened at Alvarado, California, in 1879. These developments made cultivated beet an additional source of sugar alongside cane.

Sugar beet has also been investigated as a feedstock for ethanol production. The University of California's crop account distinguishes the direct fermentation of sugar from processes that first have to break down starch. The economic usefulness of such a crop depends on yield, processing arrangements and the conditions of the region in which it is grown.

Attribution

Adapted with reference to English Wikipedia, revision 1376744710 (contributors and history), under CC BY-SA 4.0. The prose has been rewritten and checked against the cited sources; changes have been made.