Risk assessment of frost damage to sugar beet simulated under cold and semi-arid environments

In the semi-arid climatic conditions, water shortage is a key factor to generate crop production. Planting in autumn and winter and using precipitation can help cope with the problem. But in the semi-arid areas with cold winter, frost is another limited factor affecting crop production. For this purpose, in the present study, a simple and universal crop growth simulator (SUCROS) model was used to estimate the potential yield of sugar beets and frost damage from 1993 to 2009 for four autumn sowing dates (2 October, 17 October, 1 November, and 16 November) and two spring dates (6 March and 6 May) in eight locations (Birjand, Bojnord, Ghaen, Mashhad, Torbat-e Heydarieh, Neyshabor, Torbat-e Jam, and Ghochan) of the Khorasan province in northeastern Iran as a semi-arid and cold area. There was a large variability between locations and years in terms of frost damage. The crop failure from frost for the autumn sowing dates ranged from 62.5 to 100% at Neyshabor and Ghochan, respectively. Although autumn sowing dates performed better than spring sowing dates in terms of fresh storage organ yield (~ 109.9 t ha^-1 vs. ~ 78.4 t ha^-1), the risk of frost stress under autumn sowing dates was high at all studied locations. To maximize potential yield and minimize frost risk, sugar beet farmers under semi-arid and frost-prone conditions in the world such as Khorasan province should choose optimum sowing dates outside the high frost risk period to avoid crop damage. The last frost day under these areas normally happened between the 15th and 28th of February, after which no frost events occurred. Accordingly, it is recommended to farmers to sow sugar beet after the period during which no frost risk for sugar beet occurred.