2.04.1.0 FOLIAR DISEASES

Can diseases of the sugar beet leaves impact the prevalence and severity of storage diseases?

CERCOSPORA

A poster at the 2021 American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists by Carley Hendershot of Michigan State University and seven co-authors (linked below), suggests that rates of cercospora infection during the growing season did not effect susceptibility to storage rates, or rates of respiration during storage. There were indications of slight differences in the sizes of lesions (some bigger, some smaller. Maybe the beets with high cercospora infection were smaller?), but they don’t seem convinced on this being a clear cut results.

A second poster at the 2021 American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists on cercospora and storage loses, this time by John Eide of USDA-ARS (but presented by my idol Karen Fugate) and four co-authors (including Karen), came to very similar conclusions. In their own words: “CLS had no apparent effect on root storage properties including:

• respiration rate
• sucrose loss
• invert sugar accumulation
• changes in sucrose loss to
  molasses
• loss of recoverable sugar per
  ton”