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History of sugar beet

ARTICLE APRIL 2013

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2 AUTHORS:
Piergiorgio Stevanato

Leonard (Lee) William Panella

University of Padova

United States Department of Agriculture

63 PUBLICATIONS 275 CITATIONS

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Available from: Piergiorgio Stevanato

Retrieved on: 20 January 2016

Piergiorgio Stevanato and Leonard W. Panella

History of

Beginning with Italian breeder Ottavio

Munerati one century ago, scientists
continue work today to improve the species.
THE STORY OF CROPS is often underappreciated. This is not a good thing, especially for the farmers who grow them. ln fact,
knm.nng what happened after the domestication and subsequent evolution of the modern
varieties could help us better understand the
needs of the species currently being cultivated
on our farms.
Sugarbeets are one of the newer crops.
They were created in Germany at the end of
the 1700s and rapidly became the most important destination of r.he species Beta vulgaris.
The sugarbeet's wild parent is the sea beet
(Beta ma ritima), sti ll living on the European
seashores and whose leaves we re harvested
and eaten by preh istoric man. After domestica tion (about 8,500 B.C.),
species first was
unconscious
cultivated for the leaves, but
selection performed by the ancient farmers
led to garden, or red, beets (around 100 B.C.)
and the fodder beets. The latter appeared in
Europe around 1500 A.D., and the sugarbeet was likely selected from it. Progress in
sugar yield, reduction of costs and manpower
requirements, processing quality, etc. has been
impressive in these past 200 years since the
creation of the sugarbeet. What is sov.rn today
is considerably different from the first sugarbeet varieties.
The history of a friendly and partly informal collaboration between American and Ita!-

ian official research stations v-.ri II be summarized here. Notwithstanding, it is sti ll a rather
unknown activity that resu lted in findings that
improved worldwide performance of sugarbeers. One could say thar some rrairs ofthe
modern varieties, including important disease
resista nces, originated and were distributed
thanks to the mentioned cooperation.

Cercospora leaf spot

The history begins exactly one century ago,
when the Italian breeder Ottavio Munerati,
working fur the Royal Sugarbeet
Station at Rovigo, Italy (a small town near
the Po River Delta), initiated crosses between
sugarbeets and Beta maritima.
According to other authors, Munerati
hypothesized that several traits of the ,.nld
parent disappeared gradually in the crop variety d ue to the unconscious selection applied
a fter domestication. It is well known that the
cultiva ted species arc much more delicate and
require more protection and ca re than their
wild parents. Tn other words, the enhancement
of rhe qualities requested by rhe farmers was
purchased wit h the loss of wild a nd potential ly
useful rraits.
Munerati speculated that the recovery of
such traiLs, including likely resistances against
some severe diseases, could be a feasible and
powerful means for increasing yield.

George Coons (left) and Lee Li ng, of the Food

and Agriculture Organization in Rome, visit
on t he bank of t he Po River nea r the Adriatic
Sea (Porto Levante, Ita ly, 19 51).

www. Suga rProducer.com

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HISTORY OF SUGARBEETS

Around 20 years later, by means of

intensive crosses between sugarbeets and
seabeets collected in the Po Delta, Munerati
obtained sugarbeets endowed with resistance
to cercosp ora leaf spot (CLS). But the derived
hybrids still displayed a number of negative
characteristics from the wild parents. The leaf
canopy was very vigorous but multicrowned,
and the roots were observed to be fangy and
irregular in shape. The best lines tended to
flower later and displayed high sugar content
b ut poor roOLyie ld. For these reasons, the
hybrids agajn underwen t several cycles of
selection in order to eliminate the undesired
characteristics.
George H. Coons was a plant pathologist
for the Division of Sugar Plant Investigations,
USDA Bureau of Plant Industry, from 1925
to 1955. lie was involved in the diseases of
su garbeet and also in development of breeding lines, parental lines and varieties with
resistance to cercospora leaf spot, virus yellows
and curly top virus. I Ie met with Munerati in
Italy in 1925 and 1935. After t he second visit
at Rovigo, he wrote, "Munerati gave me seed of
his best variety Iresistant to CLSI RO 581."
At the time, it must be recalled; lines
and varieties selected by the Rovigo Station

18 Sugar Producer FEBRLARY 20 1:1

were released only

in a stricdy official
way and exclusively
to Italian, German
and Japanese seed
companies. In the new
American environment, the variety was
repeatedly and intensively tested under
severe CLS attack.
According to Coons,
the Italian accessions
showed resistance to
CLS and even under
diseased conditions
allowed substantial
improvement of sugar
production. lt is well
known that even after
about 70 years, thls
is the most important
genetic resistance
available against CLS.

Enrico Biancardi displays a very developed Beta maritima

(Porto levante, Italy, 2011).

Rhizomania
Similarly successful results occurred in the
field of rhizomania resistance. Munerati didn't

direL"tly know the disease, the cause of which

was first discovered in Italy in 1966, 17 years
after his death.
However, in CLS-resistant materials, and
therefore d erived from his genotypes, t he very
first type of resistance to rhizomania, called

"l)'Pe Alba," was found. The name was given

because the seed company Alba bought the
main part ofMunerati's germplasm in 1949.
The superior performance of multigerm
variety "Alba P" was observed initially in trials
grown in 1957, well before the discovery of
the agents causing the disease. More recently,
based upon observation of segregating populations, this kind of resistance was classified as
quantitative by Enrico Biancardi at Rovigo.
The more resistant variety, "Rizor," was
released in 1985 by SES-!Laly after being d iscovered and developed by Marco De Biaggi. In
field trials grown in 1980, De Biaggi included
some CLS-resistant genotypes that woukl
have originated from germplasm selected by
Munerati. ln a trial located near Ravenna, an
unexpected and strong rhizomania infection
occurred. The yield of five genotypes was
much better than other entries.
From these lines, the healthiest beets
were submitted to the normal selection and
breeding procedures. In 1984, a collaborative
study was set up with the Bologna University,
where the agents that caused rhizomania
were discovered. It was established that the
fungus Polymyxa betae infects the beet rootlets
carrying and inoculating the virus, BNYVV.

The virus moves rapidly through the root

bundles of susceptible genotypes, whereas the
movement in the roots of "!Uzor" appeared to
be hindered. Early in the selection program,
the "!Uzor type" resistance was recognized as
monogenic and dominant.
In the summer of 1983, Alvin Erichsen, a
breeder working for Holly Hybrids, observed
very low sugar yield in a trial near Tracy, Calif.,
with the exception of three experi mental
hybrids which produced five times more than
1he suscepl ible check USH l l. An ELISA Lest on
Lhe roots confirmed the presence ofBNYVV.
The h ybrids had different pollinators, but the
same female parent, obviously carrying some
unknown resistance. During 1985 and 1986,
the mentioned hybrids were evaluated by
Robert Lewellen at Salinas, Calif., under severe
rhizomania conditions. Compared with resistant varieties of European and Japanese origin,
the trials confirmed t he high level of resistance
derived from the Holly seed bearer line.
Just as in the first trial, the three hybrids
segregated in a pattern typical for a single
dominant gene, subsequently called Rz. The
resistance gene reduces the BI\iYVV
replication rate in the root. It was observed
that the resistant (RzRz) genotypes had

Robert Lewellen discovered the " Holly"

resistance gene in 1985-1986.

significantly lower virus titer than susceptible

(rzrz) genotypes. In other words, "Rizor" and
"Holly'' resistances both seemed to limit the
spread and replication of the virus inside the
root. Recently, due to the similitude of the
resistance traits, it was speculated that Holly
resistance may have originated from old Italian
material as well.

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19

HISTORY OF SUGARBEETS

Monogerm seed

ing Eubanks Carsner, John McFarlane, Forrest

Viacheslav Savitsky was a leading sugarbeet breeder and geneticist in the former Soviet Union. He and his wife, Helen, immigrated
to the United States after World War II. Helen
was an excellent microscopist and cytologist.
Before WWH, Savitsky had frequent and close
contacts with Munerati, who understood Rus-

Owen, George Coons, Ray PendletOn and

others. The group was charged with finding
monogerm beets in different parts of the U.S.
Savitsky knew that the variety "Michigan
Hybrid 18'' was derived from the Polish CLSresiswnt variety "Buszczynsky CLR,'' which

sian very well and therefore was updated on

the research occurring in the USSR on selecting lines for monogerm seed. Surely, around
1935, Savitsky was provided with Munerati's
CLS-resistant lines.
Around the same time, Savitsky discovered
a quantitarive form of monogermity defined
as "Russian," but whose transmission was difficult to control in commercial seed multiplication. /\.monogenic type of monogermity was
isolated as well. But the breeding work was
stopped by the war. In 1946, Munerati wrote,
"I hastily asked Savitsky for more details and
for a small quantity of the new type of seed
[carrying t he monogenic trait], so I would be
able to test it here." Obviously, the request
could not be answered.
Thanks to Coons, in 1947, Savitsky was
employed in the United States by the Beet
Sugar Development Foundation and su bse

Viacheslav and Hele n Savitsky

{Salt La ke City, 1959)
quently by the USDA. His first task at the Salt
Lake City Station was to find possible sources
of mono germ seed for the domestic sugarbeet growers and industry. At the time, the
development of monogerm seed was becoming
essential due to the costs of manually singling
the beet crop. Tn this research, Savitsky collaborated with several American breeders, includ-

had been obtained from Italian genotypes. He

likely recalled in conversations wiLh Munerali
thaL in such materials tesLed in Lhe USSR, a
few mono germ plants were found. Cycles of
inbreeding had been used in Italy to help in
the identification of CLS resistance and this
method possibly allowed the rare recessive
monogerm trait to be expressed.
In fact, in a four-acre seed production field
north of Salem, Ore., sown with Michigan
Hybrid 18, Savitsky found five plants bearing
monogerm seeds. In 1953, the selected offspring of the beet SLC 101 was made available
to the American and European breeders, and
after a few years, the monogerm varieties became all that was sown in developed countries.
Proof of Munerati's hidden and post
mortem involvement in this discovery might
be given by the fact that Coons brought an ST.C
101 seed sample to Rovigo in JuJy 195] , two
years before its officiaJ release. The occasion

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was the grand opening of the new research facilities at the Rovigo Station, completely built
\vith U.S. fund s. This could be more evidence
for the coll ective but unpubl ished knowledge
and cooperation betv.reen scientists in Ttaly and
the U.S. at this time.
Starting in the 1980s, the old , fruitful
and tradilional collaboration was continued
between Lewellen and Biancardi- working at
the stalions of Salinas and Rovigo respectively
-and increased time after Lime. The partnership has been expanded to the stations of
USDA-ARS at Fon Collins, Colo. ; East Lansing,
Mich.; and Fargo, N.D. [with Leonard Panella,
Mitch McGrath and Larry Campbell respectively I, with important results and publications, as
always, without specific finandal support. An
example is the book on Beta maritima recently
published by Biancardi, Panella and Lewellen
(reviewed by Sugar Producer, April2012}.
Piergiorgio Stevanato, currently working
at the Padua University, is the new scientist in
this continu ing collaboration that has resu lted
in new resea rch papers being published on
germplasm resources, enhancement, genetics
and molecular characterization. And so, the
story goes on.

Acknowledgements
This article was written in collaboration with Robert Lewellen and Enrico Biancardi, who experienced more or less directly the second half of lhe abcve story. Because many of the details
described are unpublished, their help should be remembered with gratitude.

Piergiorgio Stevanato

Leonard Panella on the shore of th e

Adriatic Sea (Aibarella , Italy, 2011).

www. Suga rProd ucer.com

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