How to plant and care for fodder beet

Fodder beet is an unpretentious plant that always brings high yield, and growing and caring for it is elementary. Beets contain pectin, fiber, dietary fiber and mineral salts, which are absorbed by proteins and carbohydrates. Fodder beet is an excellent feed for livestock, especially in winter, when animals are given dry and canned feed. Thanks to it, the assimilation and digestion of hay, haylage, silage and concentrates is improved. In this article we will look at how the cultivation of fodder beet, so that it brings great harvests.

Fodder beet varieties

To this day, old varieties of fodder beet are still quite common and are selling quite well, such as the Ekendorfskaya yellow, Galitskaya, Lvovskaya. However, more and more new varieties are emerging that differ in quality, resistance to pests and high yields. The most popular of them include:

1. Lada - a variety of fodder beet, in which the root crop is white or pink-white, oval-cylindrical in shape, immersed in the ground by ⅓. The flesh of beets is juicy and fairly dense. Plant remains until the collection of beets. The variety Lada does not bloom for long, it has good resistance to chickens and coagulant rot when stored. On average, yields a yield of up to 1200 c / ha.
2. The single-growth variety Nadezhda has a red, slightly elongated, oval-shaped root vegetable. The flesh of the beet is white, the leaves are green with a faint anthocyanin coloration. It has a convex, small, gray head. Harvest brings good, exceeding the standard. It can get sick with powdery mildew and mildew.
3. The variety of fodder beet Milan is a triploid, one-seeded hybrid. The length and width of the root-sized medium-sized, oval-shaped. Submerged deep into the soil. The part of the beet that is below the soil is white, and the part above the ground is green. The fodder beet of this type brings an average crop, to 785 c / hectare. Resistant to cercopiasis.
4. Like Milan, the Vermon variety is a triploid, single-seeded hybrid, with a medium-sized, cylindrical-conical root vegetable.It is not deeply immersed in the soil. The soil is white in the ground, and everything above the ground is green. The yield of this variety reaches up to 878 c / ha.
5. The Jamon beet variety is a triploid, single-seeded hybrid. It has a conic-cylindrical root crop, orange-yellow in the soil, and bright orange above. Plant medium size, green. Beet scap is short. The yield of this type is up to 84 centners per hectare. Korneedov almost not sick, susceptible to chalcosporosis.
6. Starmon fodder beet is a triploid, single-seeded hybrid. It has a conical root crop, in the ground is yellow, on top of green. The plant is long, the veins on it are white, the socket is almost upright. This beet variety brings up to 692 centners per hectare of crop.

When and how to plant beets: features of planting root

When the soil temperature at a depth of 8 cm is about 6 ° C, then the fodder beet is planted in the ground. This usually occurs in late March - early April. After two weeks, you can already see the first shoots, but if the temperature of the soil was above 5 ° C, the seeds can germinate on the 5th day. Before planting, a mandatory procedure is the treatment of seeds from pests and diseases.You also need to know how deep the beet is planted.

The depth of the pits for seeds should be 5 cm, and the distance between crops - about 0.5 m. In order to preserve moisture in the soil, crops need to be run in, and for weeds to be less, before planting the soil must be treated with herbicides. Important for a good harvest are temperature conditions. If the soil is very cold, the entire crop may die. Before the first shoots appear, weeds and a crust can form in the ground. Easy loosening of the land can help avoid a large number of weeds.

The land where the beets will grow should be carefully dug before planting it from the seeds. For better harvesting, compost is best applied in the spring, which will help destroy weeds and cultivate the soil.

How to care for fodder beet

In order to get a rich harvest, you must follow the rules for the care of fodder beet. Beets do not require special attention, agricultural cultivation is quite simple. The main care is timely loosening and weeding, proper watering and protection from pests and diseases.

Loosening and weeding

If a crust formed on the soil, it means that it lacks oxygen. The planting scheme of fodder beet involves the loosening of the soil a few days after planting. Loosening the surface with a flat cutter is recommended every time after rain.

Watering beet

When watering beets, first of all, are guided by the weather. Abundant watering is needed at a time when the root grows and forms. 30 days before digging the beets, watering must be completely eliminated, otherwise the roots may contain less sugars and will be stored worse. If it often rains in the fall, they make gaps between the rows for draining water.

Pest Protection

Beets can be food for various pests, so planting and care in the open field are accompanied by measures to protect against pests. As a preventive measure, mineral fertilizers are used. Compost is introduced when autumn digging is carried out.For 1 ha, 35 tons of organic fertilizer are needed. Wood ash is also excellent as a fertilizer, for 1 hectare you need up to 5 centners.

No less useful will be potash and phosphate fertilizers.

When to harvest, how to determine fruit ripening

Maturation of fodder beet depends on the weather. In view of the fact that fodder beet is afraid of low temperature, it is best to harvest before the onset of frost. Root must be very carefully removed from the soil without damaging it. It is also necessary to carefully trim the tops, otherwise the storage of beets will be significantly reduced.

If you notice growths on beetroot, the lower leaves turn yellow and wither, and the beet fruits have reached the size according to the variety - this means that the time has come for harvesting.

Now you know all about fodder beets, how to plant and care for them, how to protect the plant from pests and when to harvest.It remains only to wish you success in growing this useful culture.