Beet The Heat With Quantis
16 May 2025, UK: Sugar beet crops have already been hit by stressful effects of extreme dry weather, record high seasonal temperatures and intense levels of sunlight.
Weather extremes
While good conditions in early spring enabled timely drilling, plants that have emerged have been hit by the prolonged lack of rainfall and extreme diurnal temperature range – from 25⁰C plus by day, plunging to single figures at night.
With crops already stressed by the conditions, any further period of high temperature stress now could compromise potential for the rest of the season, warned Syngenta Technical Manager, Jonathan Ronksley. “BBRO advice has highlighted keeping beet plants growing strongly right through the summer will be crucial to make up for the lost time during the spring.
“The challenge in the current climatic conditions will be prolonged periods of temperature stress that hits plants’ potential.”
Jon reported QUANTISTM trials in Lincolnshire last year highlighted how untreated plants affected by early high temperature stress failed to recover their growth potential, even after the temperatures returned to seasonal norms.
Preventing heat stress
“Preventing effects of initial heat stress events provided the greatest response from the Quantis treatment,” he advised. “That continued right through the growing season.”
The new Syngenta Portal App gives growers advance warning of temperature stress events, helping decision making to optimise Quantis application timing.
Crops left untreated through an early high temperature stress event responded to a later Quantis treatment ahead of a subsequent stress events during root bulking, but not as strongly as plants that had been protected through both stress events.
“The emphasis is on preventing the effects of early temperature stress events,” Jon advocated.
“High temperatures will affect photosynthesis and potentially result in cell damage by reactive oxygen species (ROS) – so once the stress has past, the plant may not return to normal growing.
“Quantis enables sugar beet plants to carry on growing through periods of stress, and also allows plants to return to normal growing when the stress has passed.”
Syngenta research at Nottingham University, to investigate plant stress responses, has helped to establish recommendations for Quantis treatment. That recommends treatment when forecasts indicate three consecutive days with temperatures in excess of 25⁰C for more than four hours a day, or if the temperature exceeds 30⁰C at any point.
Heat stress alert
“If the temperatures are forecast to meet the stress parameters, we recommend an application of Quantis at 2.0 l/ha,” he advised. “Best results have consistently been achieved when Quantis is applied before the onset of heat stress – ideally one to four days prior to events, to pre-condition plants.”
In the Lincolnshire trials, at Nocton, the crop that received a Quantis treatment ahead of an initial temperature stress event delivered an 18% yield increase (91 t/ha), compared to farm standard without any Quantis of 78.4 t/ha. Plots that only received the Quantis prior to a second heat event, 10 days later, produced a 10.3% yield increase over untreated.
The results demonstrated how plants affected by early stress struggle to recover to the same extent, even when they are offered protection from subsequent heat events,” Jon emphasised.
“The sequence timing in the trial also indicated that the effects of Quantis treatment at 2.0 l/ha were lasting at least 14 days in protecting against the prolonged effects of repeated heat events.”
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