The origins of weed beet

Samples of weed beet were collected from two fields in Norfolk, one in which they had been present for several years and could have evolved from normal sugar beet varieties, and another in which the weed beet were thought to have arisen more recently, through contamination of a monogerm variety. The samples were grown to maturity and used as mother plants in test crosses with monogerm O-type (non-restorer lines. Observations on the mother plants and on the progenies of the test crosses, with respect to the occurrence of the monogerm gene and of cytoplasmic male sterility, were consistent with the hypothesis that weed beet can arise by evolution from bolting plants in uncontaminated seet lots, as well as from seed lots that have been contaminated with annual forms of Beta vulgaris. This conclusion is important in relation to the need for implementing agronomic control measures for weed beet, as well as for eliminating the risk of releasing contaminated seed lots.