Weeding & hoeing in beets
Precise mechanical weed control in beets.
Precise mechanical weed control plays a decisive role in the cultivation of sugar beet. The individual steps and their importance for the successful cultivation of sugar beet are explained in more detail below.
Mechanical weed control in sugar beets
- Blind weeding: Blind weeding is recommended 2-3 days after sowing in pre-emergence, depending on the weather and location. This weed control measure only has a short time window; used too early, success will be limited as the weeds will be too small to be buried. However, poor timing in the seedling stage can result in high crop losses. The sowing depth is an important factor.
Practic tipp: Do not weed during crop emergence or the cotyledon stage. - Second weeder pass: Beets are well rooted from the 2-leaf stage, making careful weeding possible. Silting and crusting can reduce gas exchange in the soil and severely restrict sugar beet growth. The rotary hoe can be used to break up these crusts, loosen soil and loosen and uproot weeds from the 2-leaf stage.
Practic tipp: The rotary hoe can be used to break crusts during early crop growth! - First hoeing pass: Only possible from the cotyledon stage onwards. Sugar beet is especially poor at competing with weeds at this stage. Therefore: The smaller sugar beet, the closer plants should be hoed. Sweeps should be used as flat and as close as possible to the crop without covering it. To stop this from happening, we recommend using deflector discs or protection shields. Caution: Do not use finger hoes.
- Second hoeing pass: The next hoeing pass is possible from the 2-leaf stage when using a camera steering system. All a row-crop cultivator will leave behind is a narrow, unhoed strip, which can use worked by fingers hoes within the row. Precise adjustment of finger hoes is necessary to avoid significant beet losses.
- Tined weeder pass: The beet is robust from the 4-leaf stage, which means two hoe passes can be carried out to manage the narrow unhoed band in the beet rows.
- Additional hoeing passes: Depending on the weed pressure, additional hoeing is possible until the row closes. For good weed management, light hilling can be carried out after the 3-4-leaf stage, and until the final hoeing pass before row closure.
Caution: Drive slowly when using finger hoes in the 2-leaf stage.
Mechanical weed control in sugar beets: The TOP 6
- Good soil preparation and the correct sowing date are crucial when achieving good results from blind weeding.
- Sugar beet is not competitive when young, therefore early and regular weed control is required.
- Never bury sugar beet.
- Sugar beet’s tolerance to weeding increases significantly from the 2-leaf stage.
- Cross weeding and hoeing results in good weed control, but this must be planned in precisely with the sowing date.
- Hilling right up to row closure achieves excellent weed control within the row.
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