Biotechnology-Enhanced Sugar Beets
Sugar beet and sugar cane growers throughout North America face significant challenges protecting their crops from weeds, insects and disease.
Biotechnology provides a platform for new technologies to manage these challenges and develop traits, such as new options for weed control, insect protection and disease resistance.
Sugar beets that have been enhanced through biotechnology and contain the Roundup Ready® gene allow growers to control weeds using Roundup agricultural herbicides.
The Roundup Ready system in sugar beets requires fewer herbicide applications to effectively control weeds. Fewer trips across the field mean reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced soil erosion, reduced soil compaction and enhanced water conservation. These sugar beets are helping growers manage weeds, improve productivity and lessen impacts on the environment, while preserving a sustainable and geographically diverse supply of sugar.
Today, biotechnology-enhanced sugar beets provide benefits to sugar growers, while producing sugar that is the same as the sugar from sugar beets and sugar cane improved through conventional methods.