What is fodder beet for animals and can people eat it?

What is stern beet: description and photo

Beet grown for food is a biennial plant of the Amaranthaceae family (previously classified as a Chenopodiaceae). In the first year of growth, a root crop weighing 1.5-2.5 kg with a large number of leaves is formed. On the second, flowering shoots appear, with the help of which further propagation of the crop occurs.

The plant has a tap-type root system. The bulk of the roots are located at a depth of 50 cm, although taking into account the shoots they can reach a depth of 3 meters. The leaves located in the root zone of beets are petiolate. They are solid and have a shape similar to a heart. The stem has triangular lanceolate leaves. Both are colored light green.

The appearance of root vegetables depends on the variety. The shape can be different - oval, cylindrical, spherical, conical. The most common colors are red, crimson, white, orange and yellow.

The first mention of the culture dates back to the 2nd century BC. Then it was grown in the Mediterranean. In Rus', the vegetable was first mentioned in the 10th century. At that time, beets were not yet divided into fodder and table beets. This happened in Germany in the 16th century. The first forage varieties were created here, and later they served as the basis for the development of sugar varieties.

Early beet varieties spring vitamins

For early beet varieties, fruit ripening time is 95 days. The vegetable crop withstands cold weather and is resistant to diseases. The harvested crop is not stored for long. Popular early beet varieties include: Detroit, Northern Ball, Pablo, Bolivar, Regala.

The root vegetables of the vegetable accumulate many vitamins, minerals and bioflavonoids. The vegetable can be added to many dishes and eaten fresh. In addition to root vegetables, greens are also eaten. It makes tasty and healthy dietary dishes.

Libero

The seeds of the Dutch table variety Libero are considered the best. The variety is high-yielding, resistant to bolting and early ripening of sweet fruits. Harvesting begins 82 days after emergence. The leaves of the plant are green-pink, erect, oval in shape.

Root vegetables are oval-elongated in shape with thin smooth-red skin, weighing 180 g. The inside is tender and juicy, dark red in color without light arcs.

Vinaigrette Marmalade

Vinaigrette Marmeladka is considered a suitable beet variety for the Moscow region. The culture belongs to the early ripening group, characterized by numerous harvests, drought resistance, and uniform ripening of homogeneous fruits. The period from germination to maturity lasts 98 days.

The shape of the root crops is round or flat-round, weight 450 g. The pulp is juicy, high in sugar, dense, dark red in color. The harvested crop is stored for a long time.

Cold resistant 19

One of the best beet varieties for the Urals is Cold-resistant 19. The plant is resistant to cold. Other distinctive characteristics are: consistently high yield, can be sown before winter, is resistant to bolting, and the harvested crop is stored for a long time.

Cold-resistant 19 is a mid-early variety; the harvest ripens in 72 days. Root vegetables are round or flat-round, weight 180 g. Thin, smooth skin has a dark red color. The pulp is juicy, tender, dark red in color without visible white rings.

Bordeaux 237

Bordeaux beets belong to the table type, the early ripening group. Ripening occurs after 94 days. The leaves are located tightly to each other, their color is dark green with burgundy veins and dark pink petioles. The length of the leaves reaches 40 cm.

To obtain an early harvest, seeds begin to be sown in the first half of March. The root vegetables have a round-flattened shape, up to 15 cm in diameter, weighing 480 g. The skin is dark red in color. The inside is juicy, sweet, deep red in color without arcs or stripes.

The seeds of the variety count well and germinate well, the harvest is stored for a long time. The plant is highly resistant to drought and many fungal diseases. During long-term storage, the juiciness, density, sweetness and aroma of the pulp are preserved.

Red ball

The description for the beet variety Red Ball indicates medium-early harvest ripening (the growing season lasts 95 days), resistance to flowering, cold, diseases, and is not prone to stemming. Average resistance to drought is noted.

The fruits are round in shape with red skin, weighing 420 g. Dense, tender, juicy dark red pulp. The harvested crop is stored well and for a long time, transportability is at a high level.

Differences from sugar and table beets

Despite the fact that fodder beet is the ancestor of sugar varieties, they have many differences.

Table beets are smaller in size and colored in different shades of burgundy due to the pigment betacyanin. Its main difference from feed is that it contains less plant fiber (fiber) and the flesh is more tender.

Who is fed ball beets?

Fodder beets are mainly fed to livestock, namely those animals that produce milk. This is an important part of the diet of cows, goats, and sheep. Animals love it very much and eat it with great pleasure. From a physical point of view, this is a useful supplement, it increases milk yield, compensates for the lack of vitamins in winter, normalizes fat metabolism, and improves digestion.

Beets are given to cows only after heat treatment

It is also suitable for some other types of pets. Horses and pigs need it in winter; very often it is also included in the diet of rabbits and poultry (chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys). Animals can eat not only root vegetables, but also tops. Before feeding, the vegetable is crushed and added to mash or given separately.

Advantages and disadvantages

Every culture has its own strengths and weaknesses that need to be taken into account. The pros and cons of beets for feed are given in the table.

Harvest and storage

Yellowing and drying of the leaves indicates the ripeness of the beets. The root crop has already stopped growing, so the harvest is harvested by digging. Do this until the first frost.

It is best to store beets in ventilated areas, at a constant temperature of +1-20C. By deciding to cultivate fodder beets on your property, you will receive an indispensable feed component for many species of animals.

Unlike animals, humans eat three types of beets - red, white and leaf. Read about what beets are and how they are useful, as well as what varieties of this root vegetable are suitable for growing in different regions of Russia.

Such beets will be an excellent predecessor for planting other crops. A large assortment of fodder beet varieties will allow you to choose the most suitable root crop, and adherence to agricultural technology will bring you maximum yield.

Application for cows, pigs and other animals

Fodder root beets are intended for feeding farm animals. It is of particular value in winter, when livestock are switched to dry feed and the need for nutrients increases.

It is not recommended to give cows more than 35 kg of beets per day, otherwise the taste of the milk will deteriorate and the fat content will decrease. Sheep eat up to 5 kg per day, pigs - up to 7 kg for every 100 kg of weight, horses - about 15 kg.

For piglets, the vegetable is boiled or steamed and added to bran porridge; other animals eat it raw. Fresh tops are given to cattle, goats and rabbits, and sometimes horses. For goats, chalk is added to the leaves to neutralize the acidity.

Storing fodder beets

To provide animals with succulent food for a long time, how to store fodder beets? An equipped room with a ventilation system and maintaining a stable temperature regime: +1…+2 °C is suitable for storage.

In winter, fodder beets are stored in a pile. It is advisable to place it on a dry hill: it will protect it from flooding during storage in the spring. The length of the collar can be 30 m, the height is 1.5 m, the width is usually 3 m, and the height is 2 times less.

Fodder beets for cows and other livestock complement dry feed in the diet. The product is in demand on farms and private farms. In addition, high yield is an argument in favor of cultivating vegetables.

Is it possible for people to eat

Due to the large amount of fiber and fibre, this industrial crop is poorly absorbed by the human body. In addition, it is not very tasty and takes a long time to cook. Table beets and sugar beets are suitable for culinary purposes. By the way, a decoction of the latter is known as a good auxiliary remedy for tuberculosis. In addition, beets increase hemoglobin and are perfect for various diets.

Features of culture

The vegetable belongs to 2-year-old crops from the subfamily Chenopodiaceae, the amaranth family. The homeland of the plant is Germany, bred in the 16th century. After 2 centuries, it spreads throughout European countries. The plant's chemical composition is almost no different from other varieties of fodder vegetables, but the fruits contain a large amount of fiber and fiber.

What does fodder beet look like? First, a turnip is formed with a thickening and a rosette, which is formed by basal leaves. Next year, flower stalks are formed that bear fruits and seeds. Description of beets:

1. Roots. They are bag-shaped, in the shape of an oval cone, cylinder, or ball. They weigh on average from 0.5 to 2.5 kg. Vegetable color - orange, red, yellow, pink, purple, greenish-white.
2. Escape. The height of the peduncle reaches 1 m. The fodder crop has 2 types of leaf blades. Petiolate, ovate-heart-shaped leaves are located on the basal area of ​​the vegetable. Lanceolate foliage located on the stem, triangular, long.
3. Inflorescences. They are formed as a panicle, with flowers of both sexes, where the seeds ripen.
4. Root system. On the sides of the central rod, roots grow, which do not lie very deep in the soil.

Is it possible to eat fodder beets? It is not advisable to introduce a person to the menu. Root vegetables, along with juicy tops, are included in the diet of animals.

Feeding fodder beets to cows affects the increase in milk yield.

Compliance with the requirements of agricultural technology during cultivation has a positive effect on the yield of fodder beets.

Advantages and disadvantages

When grown, the fodder plant has advantages and disadvantages. Among the advantages of fodder beet are:

• easy digestion of succulent feed by ruminants;
• high productivity;
• meeting energy needs;
• stimulation of the mammary glands (milk production);
• reduction of weeds in fields;
• shelf life of root crops.

The disadvantages of forage crops include:

• regular watering and fertilization;
• demands on soil structure;
• protein content;
• drop in milk fat content, deterioration in taste properties with an overdose of fodder beets;
• annual change of crop rotation.

A week before calving, the cows exclude the product from the menu. 15 kg of fodder vegetables are introduced into the daily diet of a dairy cow; up to 10 kg are fed at a time. Otherwise, consequences are possible: improper functioning of the rumen, indigestion.

Varieties and yield per 1 ha

Since the 16th century, breeders have significantly improved the original version of the crop. Modern diversity makes it possible to choose the appropriate variety for any growing conditions.

Reference

The most productive varieties are cylindrical, bag-shaped and elongated-cone-shaped. The record holder is the Lada variety, which produces about 170 tons per hectare.

Let's consider some popular varieties that are not very demanding on soil composition and are resistant to disease, drought and cold:

• Ursus Poli is a hybrid bred in Poland. A smooth root vegetable of orange or yellow color with juicy white or beige pulp. The growing season is 120-135 days. The variety is not picky about soil composition and stores well. Productivity 125 t/ha.
• Record Poli is another variety from Polish breeders. It has cylindrical-conical smooth root vegetables of pink color with white pulp and weighing up to 6 kg. The duration of the growing season is 145 days, you can harvest up to 125 t/ha.
• Centaur Poly is a beet originally from Poland. Oval white root vegetables weigh up to 2.5 kg. The peculiarity of the variety is its rapid growth, resistance to cercospora and bolting. Ripening time is 145 days, yield is 100-110 t/ha.
• Eckendorf yellow is the fruit of the labors of Moscow breeders. It has a cylindrical shape. The color, despite the name, can be not only yellow, but also red. The pulp is juicy. During the period from germination to harvesting - 150 days - it grows up to 1.5 kg. Average yield is 100-150 t/ha.

These varieties are considered the best in terms of yield, nutritional value and unpretentiousness. You can also add Oberndorf red to them.

The best varieties

Farmers most often choose the following beet varieties for cultivation:

1. "Centaur Poly";
2. "Eckendorf yellow";
3. "Oberndorf Red"

The vegetable has a tap root that can penetrate the soil up to 2.8 meters. The vast majority of the beet root system is located in the upper layers of the soil (up to 50 cm in depth). Based on the description of the shape of the vegetable and the depth of its root immersion in the soil, the following varieties are distinguished.

Cylindrical vegetables, in which from a quarter to 40% of the length is in the underground part:

• Arnim Krivenskaya;
• Eckendorf yellow;
• hybrid - Urozhainy and Timiryazevsky 156.

Conical vegetables with no more than 20% above the ground:

• Poltava white;
• Firstborn;
• Semi-sugar white;
• Timiryazevsky 12 (hybrid).

Vegetables that look round, spherical, slightly flattened, protruding halfway above the soil surface:

• Sugar round 7 and 0143;
• Start.

An oval-elongated vegetable, more than half of its size is immersed in the soil:

• Northern Orange 1033;
• Winner;
• Siberian orange;
• Barres.

Growing

Seed prices vary depending on the variety and manufacturer, starting from 150 rubles per 100 g. Due to the long growing season, the crop is planted in the second half of March or early April. At the time of starting work, the ground at a depth of 12 cm must be warmed to at least 7˚C.

Soil preparation

The vegetable places increased demands on the soil. Swampy, sandy and rocky soils are unsuitable. The optimal acidity for this industrial crop is pH 6-7. If the pH value is below 5.5, liming is necessary.

Reference

It is best to plant beets for food in places where legumes, corn, rye or wheat previously grew.

When choosing a location, preference is given to the one with more sunlight. After all, its deficiency will lead to slow growth and disease.

To prepare the site you need:

1. Weed out the weeds (twice, 2 weeks apart). To clear perennials in the fall, systemic herbicides are used - “Hurricane”, “Buran”, “Roundup”.
2. During autumn digging, add compost (35 t/ha) and wood ash 5 t/ha).
3. In the spring, before planting, re-plow the area and apply nitroammophoska (15 g per 1 m2).

The soil ready for planting should be loose, slightly moist and have a fine lumpy structure.

Sowing and care

It is necessary to prepare not only the soil, but also the seeds for planting. They are immersed in a disinfectant solution for half an hour, treated with a growth stimulator and dried.

Furrows are made on the site at a distance of 50-60 cm from each other. Sow the seeds to a depth of 3 cm in increments of 25 cm. Approximately 15 seeds are required per 1 meter of seed row, 150 g per one hundred square meters. After sowing, the row is sprinkled with earth and lightly compacted.

The first month and a half the crop grows slowly. Her care includes:

• regular weeding;
• thinning beet sprouts after the first two leaves appear on them;
• loosening the soil;
• feeding;
• watering.

The minimum temperature at which beet seeds can germinate is -4˚C. But during the period of sprout development and the appearance of the first leaves, the plant becomes very sensitive to cold. The optimal temperature for fetal growth and development is 20-23˚C.

Water the crops regularly. Each time after this, the soil is loosened to ensure air circulation. This rule also applies to the period after rain. A month before harvesting, watering is stopped to prepare the plant for storage.

Fertilizers: what to feed for the growth of root crops

Beets need a lot of nutrients to grow well. Timely application of fertilizers will help ensure this:

• Nitrogen is first introduced into pre-sowing treatment in an amount of 80%, the rest is used during fertilizing. Total weight - from 120 to 150 kg per hectare. Application in excess of the norm will cause increased growth of tops, which will negatively affect the fruits.
• Phosphorus and potassium are used in the fall during plowing and in the spring when processing before sowing. The first will need 90-120 kg/ha, the second - 150-200 kg/ha. These fertilizers increase the drought and frost resistance of the vegetable.
• Boron is necessary for high yields. Apply at a time when the sprouts have 3-4 leaves. Per hectare you will need 180-200 g.

During the season, fertilizing is done at least 2 times: after thinning and 20-30 days after the first. In addition to mineral fertilizers, organic fertilizers are also used: slurry, bird droppings, etc.

When to harvest crops from the garden for storage

Cleaning work takes place from the last ten days of September to mid-October. If the root crop is collected for storage, then you need to do it before the first cold weather. When a crop is grown on an industrial scale, it is harvested using machinery. In this case, the leaves are mowed and used for preparing feed (silage, etc.). In small areas, beets are harvested by hand.

On a note

Dug up root crops are quickly damaged at temperatures below -2˚C, so they are collected before the first frost.

Store the harvest in dark rooms equipped with ventilation, with a temperature range of 2-5˚C. Only whole and healthy root vegetables are suitable for this.

Harvesting fodder beets

When is fodder beet harvested? The ripening of fruits is signaled by:

• wilting, yellowing of tops;
• achieving a volume that corresponds to a fodder beet variety.

How to harvest a field depends on the size of the fodder beet plantation. On large areas, where the yield of fodder beet exceeds 85 centners per hectare, a mechanized method is used.

Use a potato harvester or digger. At a summer cottage, root crops are dug up by hand. Use a pitchfork to dig up plants.

The foliage of root vegetables is torn off and laid out in piles. When the beds are removed, damaged individuals are discarded: they are not suitable for storage. Large specimens are put aside separately: they are stored worse.

It is preferable to harvest the plantings before the onset of frost - from the last ten days of September to mid-October: the commercial properties are preserved for a long time.

Harvesting beets

There is no consensus on the best way to extract beets from the soil. Some gardeners suggest making do with their own hands, while others use improvised means. A lot depends on the beets and the soil.

The larger the beets have reached, the more difficult it will be to remove them from the soil.

Beets that reach a large diameter are difficult to grow, especially if the soil itself is dry and hard. Then, in order to avoid cracks and mechanical damage to the vegetable, you have to use equipment. The instructions given below will be based on the most difficult and unfavorable conditions for harvesting beets.

Rules for collecting beets

1. Choose a dry day without precipitation. Harvesting beets during rain will negatively affect their preservation;
2. Prepare special equipment: a sharpened knife, a shovel and a container for collecting root vegetables;
3. Carefully dig up the soil around the vegetable so that it can be removed without unnecessary effort;

Before removing the beets, loosen the soil around the root crop

The removed tops can later be used to prepare various dishes

The collected beets must be dried indoors or outdoors.

Important! If the beets were collected in dry and warm weather, then they can be dried directly on the site. In fresh air, beets require much less time to dry - only a few hours. If the harvest day turns out to be rainy, the root crops will have to be dried in a room that meets the criteria specified in paragraph seven.

Sorting

Before sending beets for long-term storage, it is necessary to conduct a thorough analysis of the root crops to determine their suitability. If you add just one damaged vegetable to dozens of healthy ones, the rotting process will quickly affect all the beets in one container. Therefore, the sorting procedure should be approached with special attention:

1. Fruits that are damaged during cleaning, begin to rot, and are painful in appearance must be immediately disposed of or consumed - at the discretion of the farmer;

Before sending beets for storage, it is necessary to remove rejected root crops

Shelf life depends not only on the size, but also on the variety of root crop

Video - Collection and storage of beets

Errors when harvesting beets

The main errors relate to the time of collection and are divided into two types. The farmer either overcooked the treasured vegetables or removed them from the soil too early. In the first case, negative consequences sometimes do not manifest themselves immediately. The seemingly beautiful root vegetables move into the cellar, and only after a month or a couple of months do you notice that half of the fruits are already beginning to rot. The reason for this may be either incorrect storage conditions or keeping the beets in the soil for too long, during which time the vegetable has had time to freeze thoroughly.

Beets harvested early will have a less intense flavor.

If the beets are removed prematurely, the results may not be so disastrous. You may end up with an unripe vegetable that can be eaten, but does not have the recognizable taste qualities that are inherent in beets.

Diseases and pests

Fodder beet is among a group of plants that often suffer from diseases. Among them:

1. Powdery mildew. When a dirty white coating appears on the foliage, it is necessary to treat the crop with fungicides.
2. Cercospora blight. Pale spots with a brownish-reddish edging indicate the need for mineral fertilizing and soil moisture.
3. Fomoz. The beets begin to rot from the inside. The cause of the disease is a lack of boron in the soil, which must be replenished.
4. Corneater. Stems and roots rot. The disease develops when the soil is excessively moist.

Among the insects dangerous to crops are:

• beet flea beetle - they gnaw off the leaves and the seedlings die;
• miner fly - they gnaw out channels in the green part of the crop, which leads to its withering and death;
• beet aphid - eats beet leaves and is a carrier of viral diseases.

To understand what the crop has suffered from, you can look at the photos with the most common signs of certain diseases and pest attacks.

Beet care: processing, watering, fertilizing

To get a good harvest, weeds are regularly removed from the garden bed, seedlings are watered, row spacing is loosened and fertilizing is applied (Figure 10).

Loosening row spacing to a depth of 4-6 cm leads to the destruction of the crust, which impedes the penetration of air to the root crops

It is especially important to carry out loosening during the development phase of the first two pairs of leaves, since crust on the soil surface leads to growth retardation and causes the plant to show increased demands on growing conditions

Figure 10. Caring for beets: watering, loosening and fertilizing

Before 4-5 leaves appear, beets grow slowly, so weeds overtake them in growth, drowning out young plants. Tractor kerosene is used to control weeds even before germination. The sown area is sprayed with it at the rate of 35-50 g per square meter. A solution of sodium nitrate is used to control weeds in the phase of appearance of 2-3 pairs of leaves on seedlings.

Growing beets requires regular watering, especially when there is a lack of moisture. Water is applied in the evening, when the top layer of soil dries out. The next day after watering, it is necessary to loosen the rows. If the area was to be mulched, there is no need to carry out the loosening procedure after each watering.

Watering beets is stopped 2-3 weeks before harvesting in order to increase the sugar content of root crops. It is better to fertilize with organic fertilizers, since mineral fertilizers can cause root crops to crack and voids to form in their body.

It should be noted that foliar feeding has its advantages:

• Absorption of nutrients occurs faster (through the leaves);
• This fertilizing does not harm root crops; it can be carried out at any stage of plant development;
• With this method of fertilizing, fertilizers are distributed more rationally and evenly.

The first feeding is carried out with a solution of bird droppings or mullein after thinning in the early phases of development.

Potassium fertilizer (wood ash) is applied at the stage of closing the tops in the rows. The ash is simply scattered over the bed (a glass per one and a half square meters), after which watering is carried out.

Sugar beet processing in Russia

Basically, sugar beets are used for sugar production, which requires complex energy-intensive technology (Figure 11).

Harvested root crops are stored in the field in piles. At the sugar processing plant, they are cleaned using special hydraulic machines, washed, weighed, checked for the presence of iron particles and crushed in a special way.

Figure 11. Technology for processing sugar beets to produce sugar

The resulting chips are placed in an installation in which sugar is released by diffusion.

Next, non-sugars and coloring matter are removed from the diffuse juice. The resulting mass is filtered and bleached several times. The purified juice is evaporated, and the resulting syrup is heated in vacuum apparatus until sugar crystals form. Then the mass is placed in centrifuges, where the intercrystalline liquid is separated. Sugar crystals are bleached by washing in hot water. The water used after washing is again returned to the sugar extraction process.

To prevent the mass of sugar crystals from sticking together during drying, it is placed in drying and cooling units, after which the sugar is sifted, packaged in bags and sent to the consumer.

After separating the juice, waste from sugar beet processing (pulp) is briquetted, dried and sent to feed livestock.

Factors influencing the development of culture

Nitrogen is a very important mineral, with the help of which the growth and development of beets occurs fully.

At the initial stages of crop development, it is important to apply nitrogen fertilizers. This will allow the formation of a highly adaptive leaf apparatus

If beets are grown on chernozem or podzolic soil, you need to add sodium nitrate. Calcium, ammonium nitrate, urea, and ammonium sulfate are also used as fertilizers.

At the second stage of the growing season, nitrogen fertilizers are not applied. Otherwise, the growth of vegetables will slow down and nutrients will not accumulate in the required quantities. During this period, the plant needs phosphorus. It is this element that affects the yield and quality of fruits. Potassium fertilizers are needed in parallel with phosphorus fertilizers. Sodium is added at all stages of the growing season. In order for the fruits to actively grow and develop, boron is added in the first stages of the growing season.

Nutrition and fertilization

Fodder beet is a high-yielding crop, so the plant consumes a large amount of nutrients, and is also quite demanding on the chemical composition and quality of the soil.

Regardless of the climate zone, beets respond well to the addition of manure and mineral fertilizers to the soil. Throughout the growing period, the plant’s need for nutrients changes:

• during the period of active growth of the above-ground part, more nitrogenous fertilizers are needed;
• the second half of the growing season is characterized by increased potassium consumption;
• Phosphorus must be applied in even doses throughout the growing season.

Percentage of nutrients for fodder beets at different ripening periods