SUGAR BEET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1942, Page 4

SUGAR BEET

ESTABLISHMENT IN NEW ZEALAND [IMPORTANT RESEARCH UNDER WAY. PROFITABLE VARIETY NEEDED. The establishment of a sugar beet industry in New Zealand, one of the post-war rehabilitation schemes proposed by the Government, is still in the future, but if and when commercial production is started, the varieties of beet most suited to conditions in the Dominion, will be available. Already the Plant Research Bureau of the De- . partment of Scientific and Industrial ■ Research has begun producing the seed of strains which will be most profitable to grow. This work, which will take a number of years, is being done at Lincoln by the new Sugar Beet Research Section, under the direction of Dr. O. H. Frankel, plant geneticist of the Wheat Research Institute, who has had experience overseas in breeding sugar beet. Since the first crop was sown last September the section has weighed and tested for sugar content 16,000 sugar beet samples taken from 26,000 separate beets. Much of this work has been done by women without previous training. The first experimental crop of sugar beet, on which the staff of the section have nearly finished work was grown at Tai Tapu. An area of four acres, which was suitable for* sugar beet growing, and as close as possible in soil structure to the districts of South Canterbury, which will be the centre of the industry if it is established, was selected through the co-operation of Mr A. Grant, of the Department of Agriculture, Timaru, and of the Soil Survey Division. t SEED FROM AMERICA. Because of the war it was impossible to obtain seed from. France and Germany, two of the leading sugar beet producing countries in Europe, but the United States Department of Agriculture sent the most recent American varieties and some European seed. Other made of seed from single beets previously selected by Mr Grant. Growth was only just satisfactory because of the dry spell in the late summer, and the over-all yield is estimated at 14 to 15 tons an acre. The average sugar content is about 18 per cent to 19 per cent. Last year the field work was done by men, but six women will be engaged this year to do the sowing and thinning. ■ The sugar beet, when harvested, goes to the laboratory -where it is washed and grouped in numbered batches of 20. Samples are taken from all parts of the beet by a specially designed drill. Each beet is then tagged and stored for future planting. All the carefully numbered samples are weighed and treated with a solution of lead acetate which precipitates the proteins. The solution is then filtered and placed in a sac- 1 charimeter, which is an adaptation of 1 a polarimeter. Sugar has the property . of deflecting polarised light, and the - greater the sugar content the greater ‘ the deflection. The use of the sacchari- - meter therefore enables the sugar con- 1 tent of the whole beet to be deter- ; mined.

TESTING WORK. The testing work is done by nine women, all of whom come from the Lincoln district. Although they have not done this type of work before, the testing capacity of the laboratory has reached more than 800 beets a day, which is a figure only exceeded with equivalent equipment in Europe where the sugar beet industry has been . established for many years. The statistical work involved is controlled by Miss S. W. Jowett, assistant geneticist at the Wheat Research Institute, who has a woman assfetant. The fullest co-op-eration has been established by the section with the Wheat Research Institute on the basis of mutual assistance in staff, accommodation, and equipment. Assisting Dr. Frankel in the research work is Mr L. G. Copp, of the Sugar Beet Research Section. When the Sugar Beet Research Section started work great difficulties were experienced in obtaining laboratory equipment, but this was finally overcome by manufacturing or improvising it locally. There was a shortage of filter paper at first, but three schools in Timaru came to the rescue with supplies. The testing season will end this month, when preparations will start for the distribution of the many groups of seed beets which have to be grown in isolation from each other and from other seed beets in the district. “Second best” beets of many of the strains under test vzill be available for- commercial multiplication, either for a sugar beet industry which may have been established by then, or for replacing sugar beet strains at present grown for feed purposes, many of which have passed the stage of useful productivity.