Generative development of red beet grown in the field and in plastic tunnels

English. The purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of both the growing method and the cultivars/lines characteristics on the seed stalk architecture and the yield and quality of red beet clusters. The plant material, consisting of 16 mono- and multigerm breeding lines and commercial cultivars, were grown in the field and under plastic tunnels. Most of the morphological traits, such as the seed stalk height, the number of shoots and the percentage of bushes with main stem plants, were comparable in both growing methods. The method of cultivation also had no effect on the yield and the 1000-cluster weight. The clusters collected in the tunnels germinated slower but resulted in highergermination capacity than the clusters harvested in the field. Most of the individual lines and cultivars grown at the same time in the tunnels and in the field presented comparable values of the studied features during generative development of plants. The results of this experiment confirm the possibility of using tunnels for growing red beet seed plants during the seed production of both mono- and multigerm cultivars.

English. cluster, monogerm, multigerm, seed production, seed stalk

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