Study on radiation use efficiency of different sugar beet cultivars

The current study was carried out in Kamalabad Agricultural Research Station of Karaj, Iran in 2011 in order to investigate the effect of genetic parameters on the components of solar radiation interception. Three sugar beet cultivars including domestic cultivars Jolgeh and 428 and foreign cultivar DS-4027 were sown on the basis of a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. The studied cultivars did not exhibit significant difference in intercepted solar radiation (fi). Radiation use efficiency of domestic cultivars (1.434 g.m-2.MJ-1) was lower than that of foreign cultivar (1.853 g.m-2.MJ-1) which was mainly resulted from higher RUE of the foreign cultivar for root production (1.536 g.m-2.MJ-1) than that of domestic cultivars (1.098 g.m-2.MJ-1). However, no significant difference was observed in RUE for shoot production between foreign and domestic cultivars (0.336 and 0.317 g.m-2.MJ-1, respectively). In total, given the superiority of diploid cultivars compared to triploid cultivars, it can be concluded that breeding programs in temperate regions (like Karaj, Iran) should focus on breeding diploid cultivars. On the other hand, the main flaw of domestic cultivars, i.e. their low R/S ratio, should be improved in breeding studies.