Change of Sugar Beet Technological Quality and Productivity as a Result of Vegetating Plants’ Treatment with Fungicides

Abstract

Studies were carried out for determining an effective consumption rate and application sequence of Abacus Ultra (suspension emulsion) and Pictor Active (concentrate of suspension) fungicides for sugar beet vegetating plants as well as revealing changes in morphological and technological indexes and the crop productivity as a result of these chemicals' combined influence. The work was conducted in a grain-arable crop rotation of Voronezh oblast in 2020–2021. RMS 127, a domestic sugar beet hybrid, was the object of investigations. The experiment scheme included study of the following variants with control and four schemes of plant protection from leaf diseases using OOO BASF fungicides: (I) first treatment with Abacus Ultra with the consumption rate of 1.25 L/ha and, in 20 days, second treatment with Pictor Active with the consumption rate of 0.6 L/ha; (II) first treatment with Abacus Ultra (1.25 L/ha) and second treatment with Pictor Active (0.8 L/ha); (III) first treatment with Pictor Active (0.6 L/ha) and second treatment with Abacus Ultra (1.25 L/ha); and (IV) first treatment with Pictor Active (0.8 L/ha) and second treatment with Abacus Ultra (1.25 L/ha). The effectiveness of sugar beet protection using the treatment scheme II was demonstrated. This agrotechnical method has a positive effect on physiological processes in a plant and effectively depresses the growth of fungi–powdery mildew agents, the treatment increased the photosynthesis productivity coefficient by 41.2%, providing 8.3 t/ha yield gain, and a 3.2-time reduction of beetroots with pathologies. Also, it increased predicted sugar output by 0.84%, improving its extraction ability during processing at the same time, and increased refined sugar yield per hectare of the crop by 24.1%.