Relative contribution of shade avoidance and resource competition to early-season sugar beet yield loss due to weeds

Shade avoidance alters the way plants grow, usually causing them to grow taller at the expense of placing resources into leaves, roots, seeds, and other harvestable materials. Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) is a rosette-forming biennial species that has limited capacity to grow tall in the first year of growth. In the context of crop-weed competition, it is mostly unknown to what extent shade avoidance reduces yield in sugar beet relative to other effects like resource competition. To determine the extent of yield loss due to shade avoidance in a field-relevant situation, sugar beets were grown alongside Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) sod in a field study. Roots were separated with a steel root barrier placed into the ground between the grass and beets. Four treatments included a weed-free control (no root barrier or grass), a root barrier control (with root barrier but no grass), shade avoidance (with root barrier and grass), and full competition (with grass but no root barrier). The presence versus absence of grass was the primary driver of effects on measured sugar beet growth and yield parameters, regardless of whether a root barrier was present. Leaf number and root length were also impacted by the presence of the root barrier. These results suggest that shade avoidance is at least as important as root interactions and resource depletion in the context of early-season sugar beet yield loss due to weeds.