Investigation of Changes in Qualitative Characteristics of Sugar Beet Breeding Lines under Drought Stress and Normal Conditions

The quality of sugar beet is a combination of all the physical and chemical states of the sugar beet root that affects the process of production or the product of sugar or other products. On the other hand, dehydration and high temperatures during the growth period increase the impurities of sugar beet root, especially nitrogenous compounds, and ultimately cause a change in the quality of sugar beet. To investigate the changes in the quality characteristics of sugar beet, full-sib families from breeding programs were investigated in two separate dry and normal tests in 2017 on the Motahari research station in Karaj. The results showed that drought stress significantly decreased root yield, sugar yield, pure sugar yield, potassium content, nitrogen content, and molasses sugar content, and increased sodium content and purity of syrup. Full sibs were significantly different for nitrogen traits and alkalinity coefficients. Despite the lack of significant differences between genotypes in terms of root and sugar yield, the highest root yield was related to full sibs 5 and 6, and the lowest yield was related to full-sib 15 and controls 20, 23, 21, and 19. In finally full sibs 5, 1 and 6 had the highest and full sibs 2, 15, 9, 2 and control 23 had the lowest sugar yield.