Efficacy of herbicidal treatments in controlling weeds in sugar beet crop and their side effects on subsequent crops

The field experiments were conducted at Egypt's Future Agency for Sustainable Development in the Al-Dabaa district (Al-Behera Governorate) over two consecutive seasons, 2021–2022, and 2022–2023. The aim was to evaluate the field efficacy of several weed control treatments for managing the biomass of broadleaf, grass, and total weeds in a sugar beet crop. The treatments included the herbicides haloxyfop-methyl (Giako 10.8 EC at 500 ml/feddan), fluazifop-P-butyl (Flozetop Super15% EC at 1250 ml/feddan), a mixture of Phenmedipham, Desmedipham, Ethofumesate, and Lenacil (Betanal MaxxPro 20.9% OD at 650 ml/feddan), and Betasana Trio 20.5% SC at 900 ml/feddan a mixture of Phenmedipham, Desmedipham, Ethofumesate. Hand hoeing twice (21 and 35 days after sowing) was also included as a comparison. The results showed that all the tested herbicides significantly reduced the biomass of the predominant weed species at 60 days after sowing. However, Betanal MaxxPro and Betasana Trio provided poor control of grassy weeds, while Giako and Flozetop Super exhibited limited effectiveness against broadleaved weeds, compared to the hand hoeing treatment and the untreated control. Importantly, all the weed control treatments significantly improved the agronomic traits of the sugar beet crop, as well as sugar content, in both seasons compared to the untreated control. Additionally, no residual effects of the treatments were observed on the subsequent crops of wheat, corn and faba bean grown in the same area after the sugar beet.