Complete: Factory estimates of K in beet tissue water for monitoring the potassium status of soils
Timescale:
2005 - 2006
Project Lead:
Unkown
Project Sponsor:
BBRO and British Sugar
Project Summary
Main Objectives
Current general recommendations for potassium fertilizer use derive from experiments done 30-40 years ago which established the premise that sugar beet require a minimum of concentration of 120 -180 mg of exchangeable K per kg of topsoil (equivalent to an ADAS Soil K Index of 2-) to achieve maximum yields of sugar. The recently completed 6-year series of BBRO funded experiments by British Sugar plc and Rothamsted Research on plots at Rothamsted with a wide range of long-established differences in exchangeable soil K has confirmed that these concentrations of exchangeable soil K are still adequate for the much higher yielding crops that are now being grown.
Latest report
Outcomes / Key Message For Growers And Industry
1. There is now a complete set of three replicated filed plots sampling the developmental time course of sugar beet root material. These are available for comparisons of the plant response to different environmental conditions and stages of development using genetic or biochemical testing methods.
2. Cell wall associated gene expression patterns have provided markers for changes in cell wall biosynthesis that can serve as targets for manipulation or characterisation of nature variation with a view to selecting for sugar beet lines with ideal composition or to find a link between different compositions and increase sucrose content.
BBRO is a not for profit company
We are set up jointly by British Sugar plc and NFU Sugar
