Technological beet quality: Alternative predictive model by utilizing the dry substance of beet brei filtrate

Abstract

Due to stagnating thick juice purity in Austria, a project was launched in 2010 in order to compare different predictive models for assessment of the technological quality of sugar beet. Preliminary results, which had been published in 2012, demonstrated that classical predictive formulas for the quality evaluation of stored beets give significantly higher calculated thick juice purities than found under technical conditions. However, formulas which take into account the invert sugar content of beet or are solely based on sugar and refractometric dry substance content of the beet brei filtrate delivered results which were close to the values known under technical conditions. After some basic considerations about the technological beet quality the results from the comparative study of the different predictive models are discussed in which the proposed “refractometer formula” performs very well. These comparisons were carried out using fresh beet material from beet variety trials and beet material that had been collected in Austrian sugar factories throughout the whole campaign in the years 2010–2015, respectively. Eventually, some possibilities are pointed out how to maximize the benefit from information obtained by the refractometric determination of dry substance of beet brei filtrate