Outcomes / Key Message For Growers And Industry
To be effective, the use of the vernalization-intensity bolting model as a commercial advisory tool requires the following measures to take place:
- The establishment of a network for recording of local temperatures centred on British Sugar’s area managers. As well as supplying data to estimate the bolting risk, this network would also serve to forecast the risk of crop frost damage. Cheap, robust and downloadable instruments to facilitate temperature recording are now commercially available.
- Procedures will need to be established for centrally collating the temperature data, calculating and updating intensities of vernalization as the season progresses, predicting the risk of bolting in different factory areas, and disseminating the information through the BBRO Knowledge Transfer System.
- Provision will need to be made for periodic bolting-characterisation trials of the type used in the present project to monitor the bolting behaviour of existing and future varieties.