Sugar beet is the only sucrose storing crop species cultivated in temperate climates. The total area of cultivation worldwide is 7.8 mill ha. In Europe sugar beets are grown on 1.98 mill. The turnover of sugar companies in Germany is 4,000 mill.
Sugar beet is a biennial species.
In the first year, a storage root is formed. Ten years ago, genetics of this species was largely unknown. A YAC library with 13,000 clones exists representing 2.2 genome equivalents. Protocol for gene transfer into sugar beet are available based on Agrobacterium mediated transformation or direct transformation of isolated guard cells. Numerous classes of repetitive sequences have been cloned and characterized by FISH suggesting that the B. vulgaris genome can serve as a model to describe the organization of the different classes of DNA in plant chromosomes.