The Effect of Acaricide Control of the Two-Spotted Spider Mite Tetranychus urticae Koch on the Cultivation of Sugar Beet (Beta vulgaris L.) and on the Size and Quality of the Yield

Abstract

Field experiments (in the 2019–2021) were carried out at the Department of Field Experimentation of the Institute of Plant Protection—National Research Institute in Winna Góra, the purpose of which was to test the insecticidal and acaricidal effectiveness of sugar beet cultivation protection against Tetranychus urticae and to assess its impact on the size and quality of the sugar beet crop. In the experiment, the following acaricides were used: spirodiclofen—240 g—22.11%, mixture of hexythiazox—250 g—23.15% and fenpyroximate—51.2 g—5.02% and insecto-acaricide paraffin oil—770 g L−1 (89.6%) and abamectine—18 g—1.88%. The controls were plants left without chemical protection. The plants were sprayed when ten mobile individuals/two spotted spider mites appeared on the leaves. Chemical treatments were carried out in the full growing season in the phase of leaf rosette formation (July–August). In the second half of October, the plant density (PD) in the field was estimated. Parameters characterizing the size and quality of the crop were calculated: sugar beet yield (SBY), biological sugar yield (BSY), pure sugar yield (PSY), sugar content (SC), refined of sugar content (RSC), the yield of preferential sugar (YPS), recoverable sugar (RS), potassium molasses (PM), sodium molasses (SM), -amino nitrogen (-AN), alkalinity factor (AF) and standard molasses losses (SML). The years were statistically significantly different for all 13 traits. Statistical differences were observed in the mean values of the observed parameters in these years, except for -amino nitrogen (-AN) and alkalinity factor (AF). The mean values of SBY, biological sugar yield (BSY), pure sugar yield (PSY) and sodium molasses (SM) differed depending on the type of protection applied. Positive correlations were observed for 28 pairs of traits, but negative statistically significant relationships were observed between 11 pairs of traits. The first two canonical variates accounted for 85.49% of the total variability between the individual combinations. The significant positive relationship with the first canonical variate was found for PD, BSY, PSY, SC, RSC, YPS, but negative for SM. The CV2 was negatively correlated with: SBY, BSY, PSY, RS, PM, SM, -AN and SML. The greatest variation in terms of all the 13 traits jointly was found for Vertigo 018 EC in 2020 and Vertigo 018 EC in 2021. The greatest similarity was found between control in 2019 and Ortus 05 SC in 2019.