Effect of size, storage, age at harvest, and juice season on physicochemical and technological characteristics of sugar beetroot

The aim of this study was to investigate effect of beetroot size, storage durations, and harvest age (150, 180, 210 days) on physicochemical and technological characteristics of sugar beet root. The results showed that chemical composition of fresh sugar beetroot was 77.20, 20.60, 17.88 0.15 and 0.71 for moisture, T.S.S., sucrose, reducing sugar and ash respectively; while purity of juice and beet quality recorded 86.80 and 81.80 respectively. Beetroot of medium size exhibited the highest sucrose content (19%), juice purity (87.73%) and beet quality (77.90%). Additionally, beetroot of the medium size showed the lowest sugar loss in molasses (2.01%) reducing sugar content (0.11%) and sugar loss in pulp (0.21%). On the other hand, the sucrose content and quality of beetroot decreased from 75.31, 81.11 at 0 day to 64.77, 72.80 after 8 days of storage respectively. However, the sugar loss in molasses increased from 2.58 at 0 day to 3.89 at 8 days of storage. Harvest beet roots at age of 210 days recorded the highest value of quality and sucrose content 81.26 and 19.03 as well as lowest value of reducing sugar (0.10). Middle season timing in mid-April recorded the highest values of sucrose content (15.74, 18.07 and 20.00%) with age of harvesting (150, 180 and 210 days) respectively;. while sucrose content and quality of beet roots recorded the highest value overall harvest age and timing of the juice season (19.21, 81.27 and 17.94, 78.40) in addition to the lowest values (0.15 and 0.26%) of reducing sugar in beetroots, respectively.