Beets - Agricultural Technology, High-yield Varieties

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Among all the variety of vegetables currently prevailing on our table, one of the places of honor is occupied by such a culture as beets. The homeland of this root crop is the coast of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Until now, its wild forms grow in this area and are a plant with fleshy leaves and a hard, white and bitter root.

Initially, fleshy leaves with petioles were used for food, and only many centuries later, thanks to the efforts of the first farmers, a vegetable appeared with the usual red juicy root vegetable. Breeding work has made it possible to gradually increase the size of the root crop. Merchants and Arab doctors brought this vegetable to India and Afghanistan, from where it returns to Europe in ancient times.

Initially, it was mainly the medicinal properties of beets that were evaluated. With the help of beets, anemia, intestinal diseases, and lung diseases were treated. Along with this, beets are beginning to be used as food. In Russia, this culture appears in the XI century in the southern territories, from there it was brought first to Moscow, and later to Veliky Novgorod and Pskov. It was the Novgorodians who were the first to learn how to preserve beets in brine, giving Europe a way of storing them for a long time. From the 12th to the 17th century, beets were the most common vegetable in Russia; today they also remain one of the favorite vegetables on our table. This culture in its composition contains pectin substances that suppress the activity of putrefactive bacteria in the body, sugars, proteins, vitamins and mineral salts.

Beets grow on well-fertilized loamy or sandy loam soil. She does not like acidic soils. To obtain a good harvest in the fall, it is necessary to add 3-4 kg of humus, 30 g of superphosphate, 15 g of potassium chloride and about 80 g of wood ash to the soil per square meter of the garden. Beets are sown in the spring when the soil warms up to 8 … 10 ° C, while wood ash can be added to the planting furrows (up to 30 g per 1 m²).

A very important requirement for cultivation is watering the beets in dry weather to form a succulent root crop. The necessary agrotechnical measures for it are: weeding and loosening the seedlings, thinning them when the first two true leaves appear at a distance of 3 cm from each other. During the summer season, thinning is carried out at least two more times: the second - when the rows are closed, at a distance of 5–7 cm between plants; and the next - when the first large root crops appear. Harvest beets before frost, pulling them out of the soil by the tops. Her leaves are cut off, sorted, taking away only whole healthy root crops for storage. Usually the harvest is stored in basements at a temperature of + 1 … + 2 ° C.

Recommended varieties of beets for growing in the Northwest region:

Bordeaux 237 is a medium early variety. The period from full sprouting to technical maturity is 62-116 days. The rosette of the plant is semi-standing, of medium size. The leaf blade is cordate, elongated, green. The petiole is 20–31 cm long. The root crop is rounded. The pulp is intensely dark red. The root crop is immersed in the soil by 1 / 2–2 / 3. Root weight: 232-513 g. Marketable yield of the variety - 34.6-79.7 t / ha.

Detroit Nero is a mid-season variety. Medium erect rosette of leaves. The leaf blade is elongated, oval, dark green. The petiole is red, short. The root crop is round, smooth. The color of the skin and pulp is red. Weight - 176–187 g. It can be damaged by miner beet fly. Productivity - 37.4–55.2 t / ha.

Mona is a medium late variety. Root crops are leveled, smooth, cylindrical in shape, weighing up to 400 g. They are immersed in the soil by 1/3. The peel is thin. The pulp is tender, juicy, of a uniform dark red color.

The incomparable A-463 is a mid-early variety. The period from full germination to technical ripeness is 69–99 days. Root crops are flat and round-flat, weighing 170-390 g. The flesh is juicy, tender, dark red, with a burgundy tint, often with dark rings.

Regala is an early maturing variety. The period from full germination to technical ripeness is 105 days. Root crops are round, smooth, with a thin skin, weighing 150-200 g. The pulp is dark red without division into ring zones, sweet. Root vegetables are well kept.