Abdulber Mulla Aref, GCSAR, Agricultural Research Center in Al Raqqa.
Aleppo University, Faculty of Agriculture.
2014

Abstract

The field experiment was carried out at the Center of Scientific Agriculture Research, Al Raqqa, during the growing seasons 2011/2012 and 2012/2013, to determine the effect of planting method and plant distance on some productivity and quality traits of four sugar beet varieties, two were monogerm i.e. Dita and Ghazira, while the other were multigerm i.e. Reda and Nadir. The experiment was sown in two methods i.e. rows, and ridges, with two plant distances (15, 20 cmbetween plants). The experiment was laid out ina split split plot design,with three replications. The combined analysis exhibited significant effect of the varieties (V), planting method (M) and plant distances (D) for the studied traits. Comparison of means using LSD _0.05 test revealed that Dita variety was superior as compared to the other varieties with respect to root yield (41.1 t.ha^-1), sugar yield (6.9 t.ha^-1), and sugar percentage (18.6%). The results also showed that planting in ridges caused a decrease in root and sugar yields with percentage of 30.2%, and 31.6 %, respectively. The highest root and sugar yields (45.4, 7.6 t. ha^-1), respectively were achieved when the planting was done in rows. The results also showed that planting plants in a distance of 20 cm achieved 40.6, 6.5 t.ha^-1, respectively, whereas, planting the plants at a distance of 15 cm achieved the highest sugar percentage of (18.7 %). We can consider Dita varietyis the best to be grown in summer season in Al Raqqa governorate of Syria and should be sown in rows with a distance of 20 cm between plants, and 50 cm between rows.