Description
Sugar beet is a conical, white, fleshy root with a flat crown. The plant consists of the sugar beet root and a rosette of leaves. Sugar is formed through a process of photosynthesis in the leaves, and it is then stored in the root. Sugar can represent between 15% and 21% of the sugar beet root’s total weight; however, depending on the cultivar and growing conditions, the sugar content can vary from 12 to above 20 percent.
The root of the beet (taproot) contains 75 percent water and the rest is dry matter. The dry matter is about 5 percent pulp and about 75 percent sugar. This pulp, insoluble in water and mainly composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and pectin, is used in animal feed. Sugar is the primary value of sugar beet cash crop. The by-products of the sugar beet crop such as pulp and molasses add another 10 percent to the value of the harvest.
Sugar beet grows exclusively in the temperate zone, in contrast to sugar cane which grows exclusively in the tropical and subtropical zones. The beet, unlike sugar cane, grows below the ground. The average weight of sugar beet ranges between one and two pounds. Sugar beet foliage has a rich, brilliant green color and grows to a height of about 14 inches. The leaves are numerous and broad and grow in a tuft from the crown of the beet, which is usually level with or just above the ground surface.
Read more about this topic: Sugar Beet
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)