Water and nutrient supply of sugar-beet

Both the root and sugar yields of sugar-beet, its industrial value as well as the safety of the production are mostly determined by water and nutrient supplies. The climatic conditions in Hungary can be characterized by frequent extremities and drought. In 7 or 8 of ten years, sugar-beet sufferes from water deficiency to a lesser or greater extent. In Hungary sugar-beet is grown on a large area with soils of thick humus layer. Besides soil properties, the nutrient supplying ability of these soils is influenced by water supply. Thus, on the one hand, these two factors are in close correlation with each other; on the other hand, the priority of water supply is obvious. Being aware of the water supply values, the expected nutrient supply, the fertilizer requirements and also the way of fertilizer application can be determined much more precisely. Thereby, the deterioration in quality and quality of crop yields, which originates from nutrient shortage or excessive nutrient supply, can be reduced.The most important results of the experiments and investigations are the followings:1.The balance in water and nutrient supplies is fundamental to achieve safe and goodquality yields in sugar-beet production;unbalance always influences the yields adversely. 2. Fertilization,together with water shortage has got unfavourable effect already at mean dosages, however high dosages cause serious damage in the sugar-content, industrial value and the sugar-yield of the sugar-beet.3. Acccording to the experiments, with average or good water supply or irrigation the application of 80-120 kg/ha N-, 80-100 kg/ha P-, 120-160 kg/ha K-fertilizer is necessary; these doses are sufficient to reach large root-yield and good industrial value.4. The EUF method that is used to determinate the requirement of N-fertilizer more precisely, proved to be suitable primarily on soils with low organic material-content and N-supply. Additional experiments are needed to be done on chernozem soils with high N-supply, because depending on the hydro-climatic conditions these soils may contain 2 or 3 times more available NO3, of which the resonable estimation cannot be ignored.