United Kingdom
July 21, 2016
Strube UK have 28 varieties in the UK Recommended and National List Trials and at the beginning of June we were very pleased to welcome Ms Wiebke Brauer-Siebrecht of the Strube Product Marketing Department based in Söllingen in Lower Saxony, Germany for a first evaluation.
Strube UK Sugar Beet Trial fieldIn Strube, the Product Marketing team are the bridge between the breeders and the sales and marketing people in the 35 countries around the world where we supply sugar beet seeds. They discuss the particular requirements of each market with the breeders and ensure that the right material is entered into national trials in each country, and ultimately decide what sugar beet seed makes it to market. Wiebke had already visited trials in Scandinavia in the preceding week and was destined to visit more trials in the north west the following week.
The weather for the visit was typical for this June – wet, cold and grey with the ground saturated under foot. We saw a number of trials in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire before it was time to head to the airport for the evening flight home to Hanover – which ended up being cancelled!
UK Sugar Beet Trials: Strube evaluation
Wiebke was satisfied with what she had seen. Our Recommended List varieties (Haydn, Pasteur) and Descriptive List varieties (Davy, Thor) looked very pleasing. The four Year 3 varieties (Landon, Degas, Leibniz and Joplin), which will all be candidates for recommendation next January (2017), showed good vigour and strong growth – Landon being particularly impressive. The four Year 2 varieties and the 16 new entries in Year 1 were almost universally good looking and were notable for their vigour and leaf cover.
Not only are the Strube varieties in pursuit of more yield, but also higher sugar content, very low bolting and good agronomic characteristics which should make the crop more reliable and easier to grow with reduced risk. Improved storability and a range of good disease resistances also remain important targets for the UK market, both now and in the future.
We are anticipating another visit by Product Marketing in September or early October, this time with a member of the breeding department. As well as assessing the varieties and trials at, or before, harvest and seeing what diseases are present, we will look to combine this visit with discussions with growers, the sugar industry and research colleagues.
It is always a pleasure to see colleagues from our parent company to discuss the matters of the day and of course sugar beet, which, wherever one goes in the world, always seems to provide a common language.
If you’d like to know more about any of the 28 Strube varieties we have on trial here in the UK, then don’t hesitate to contact Strube UK Sugar Beet’s MD, Richard Powell directly by clicking here.
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