Effect of environmental factors and maternal parent on some sugar beet seed characteristics

Standard seed percentage and mechanical viability are important characteristics in sugar beet seed production. In this study, effects of environmental factors and maternal parent on seed yield, mechanical viability percentage, germination percentage, and conversion coefficient of 10 sugar beet single crosses were evaluated. The experiment was conducted in randomized complete block design with four replications in Ardabil, Firuzkuh and Karaj in 2014. Single cross materials were produced from the cross of 10 male sterile lines with one o-type line. Combined analysis of variance results indicated that maternal parent × environment interaction had significant effect on raw seed yield, standard seed size yield, marketable seed yield, conversion coefficient, mechanical viability before seed processing, and percent weight of standard seed. Both environment and maternal parent influenced percent weight of standard seed, mechanical viability percentage after winnowing as well as germination percentage. However, filled clusters percentage was only affected by environment. Before seed processing, mechanical viability percentage was 90.41, 69.73, and 40.91% in Karaj, Ardabil, and Firuzkuh, respectively. As a consequence, marketable seed yield and conversion coefficient results in Karaj and Ardabil showed significant superiority to Firuzkuh. Results indicated that environment had significant effect (p