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18 Sugar Producer NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 SEED VARIETY REPORT | By Lynn Dusek Strong Legacy Betaseed adds value to sugarbeet growers' operations. Since 1970, Betaseed has offered sugarbeet growers extraordinary value through superior genetics and seed technology. As the only independent seed supplier to all 11 growing regions in North America, Betaseed offers the most diverse portfolio of highly tolerant sugarbeet hybrids. This responsibility is not taken lightly, and a full team of dedicated researchers, breeders, seed technologists, pathologists and technicians produce the highest-quality seed possible within our industry. Providing seed to sugarbeet growers doesn't start with seed placement in a box; rather, this is the very end of the process. The seed production and processing steps are specific and calculated to produce highly tolerant and productive seed for all regions. Every seed lot goes through the following process: 1. Creation and identification of new parents. Only the most viable and highly productive seed parents are used to produce the next generation of seed. Thousands of combinations are assembled to produce the desired traits and performance required in growers' fields. 2. Production of experimental seed. Through the breeding process, experimental seed is produced to determine, through planned combinations, which produce the desired results of tolerance, yield and field performance. 3. Pre-commercial seed production. The most promising of the seed parents are planted in the early fall in a warm climate and harvested, as stecklings (immature sugarbeet seed plants) in January and February. The stecklings are then planted in fields isolated from other seed productions. Seed is grown and harvested in July and August. 4. Commercial seed production. Seed harvested from the pre-commercial fields is prepared for commercial production by sugarbeet seed growers in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and Washington State. Some of these seed growers have been producing commercial sugarbeet seed for precisionplanting.com/nutrients You shouldn't have to wonder if the nutrients you're applying will be there next spring. W H AT YO U A P P LY TH I S FA LL WO N ' T A LL B E AVAI L A B LE N E X T S P R I N G .