[Arid_gardener] Failed Beetroot

[Tyler Storey]

Hi Donna,
While I hesitate to admit it, my beetroot also failed this Winter.  I don't
have any hard proof, but I think a couple of factors played into my crop
failure, and might have contributed to yours as well.  
First, we had warm weather very late into the season, and beets really
prefer cooler temperature -- 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit.  I found that my
germination rates were very slow and very low, and I suspect the warm
weather as a factor.  
Second, perhaps more to the point of your query, I did a superb job of
amending my vegetable garden soil last fall -- mounds of manure and carts of
compost, all well turned in.  My beetroot ended up looking like stringy
rat-tails.
Beets actually prefer very low nitrogen in order to form satisfactory
beetroot.  I suspect my beets, in addition to late germination, suffered
from a surfeit of nitrogen -- the chard right next to them grew like
redwoods, which seemed to confirm my guess.  Beets and chard are both
subspecies of Beta vulgaris, and the cultural practices that produce great
chard (or, in your case, beet-greens) will produce lousy beetroot.  
Your well-amended container soil might have been too rich in nitrogen to
produce good beetroot.  I hope you at least got to eat the tops.
Hope this helps,
Tyler

tyler at tylerstorey.com
http://tylerstorey.com
602-738-2978
-----Original Message-----
From: arid_gardener-bounces at CALS.arizona.edu
[mailto:arid_gardener-bounces at CALS.arizona.edu] On Behalf Of
farmerswife45 at global101.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 9:38 AM
To: arid_gardener at Ag.arizona.edu
Subject: [Arid_gardener] Question from Home-Hort WWW page

Donna Watkins
85328
farmerswife45 at global101.com

I planted three varieties of gormet beets early last fall.  not one of them
developed beets, only tops. I planted them in a barrel(I have gophers) with
organic bagged compost and planting soil and kept them moist.  I even let
them overwinter to see if they might still develope but they just turned
into a long root with lots of root hairs (great tops though).  Any ideas on
what happened?


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