Evaluation of three agronomic management on economic water consumption for six cultivars of sugar beet during the first three months of the growing season

Most sugar beet breeders in dry regions of Iran use agronomic managements to face water shortage, during the first three months of the growing season: water deficit after germination, and planting after the last irrigation of wheat crop. The effective of this study is the comparison of this agronomic managements with early planting with no water stress. This research was carried out during 1993-1995 in Kaboutarabad research station of  Esfahan  in a sility clay loam soil. The main plots of the three agronomic managements consisted of early planting and complete irrigation (check), early planting and water stress after germination till the last irrigation of wheat crop, and planting after the last irrigation of crop and six commercial cultivars of sugar beet as subplots in a split plot design with four replications. These managements showed significant effects on root and white sugar yield during 1994-1995. However, management had no significant effects on other characteristics. In 1995, the percentage of sugar and white sugar yield of cultivars were different. Other characteristics during the first two years showed non significant differences. Early planting with water stress during the three years had higher sugar yield in comparison with the other two management. Late planting didn’t show significant difference with the check. Higher efficiency in sugar yield was obtained by post planting with water stress. The low yield in check treatment was due to chlorosis during the three years of experiment, which requires more research. It is concluded that in dry regions economic water use in sugar beet crop can be achieved by either early planting with water stress or post planting which result in fairly acceptable white sugar yield and facing against chlorosis.