Sugar Beet, Energy Beet, and Industrial Beet

Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris) is a temperate root crop grown primarily as a source of sucrose for human diets. Breeding has focused on sucrose yield, which is simply the product of total root yield times the proportion of sucrose in the harvested roots, minus loss of sucrose in molasses due to impurities. Molasses is a source of betaine, which is recovered as a feed supplement. The non-sucrose dry matter (marc), mostly cell wall material, is used primarily for fodder. Beet juice, molasses, or sucrose solutions are easily fermented into ethanol, while whole beets or pulp is being used for biogas production. Beets have potential as a bio-resource for additional industrial and chemical feedstocks. Sugar beet vinasse is rich in glutamate that may be economically converted and substituted for some high-value petrochemicals. Cell wall material is low in lignin and thus is readily saccharified and fermented and may also serve as an economical resource for monosaccharides for which novel polymers may be developed. Procedures for sugar beet breeding are directly applicable to breed beets for alternative and novel uses.