University Place

Everything You Wanted to Know About Beets

[Amy Freidig, Program Assistant, Master Gardener Program, University of Wisconsin Extension]

Hi, my name is Amy Freidig and I’m a Program Assistant with the Wisconsin Master Gardener Program, state office, which is part of U – U.W.-Extension and today I’m here to talk to you about beets.

So, the thing about beets is you either love them or you hate them. So, I want to take a little survey before we –

[slide featuring a big red illustrated heart with the word Love above and an illustration of a black broken heart with the word Hate above it]

– before I launch in here. I want you to raise your hand if you are a beet lover.

[Amy Freidig]

[a large majority of the audience raises their hands]

Oh boy.

[laughter]

All right, so

[audience member shouting]

Do the others get to vote?!

[Amy Freidig]

Hold on. Is there anybody brave enough here to admit that they are a beet hater?

[A few members of the audience raise their hands]

Oh, we got a few, a few.

Now is there anybody in the middle? A little ambivalence, not quite sure?

[a few audience members raise their hands]

Alright, well, today I hope to convince those in the middle and on the – in the broken heart, black heart over there, over to the love side of things.

So, a little background about me and how I feel about beets.

[slide with a photo of beets growing in a garden]

I – I grew up, not being a beet lover. I didn’t, you know, I – I knew they were a vegetable. And I grew up with a mom and a grandpa who gardened –

[Any Freidig]

– so, I was around that. But you know, my mom gardened in the style that I lovingly call benign neglect. As you can kind of see here but with an example picture –

[return to the slide with the photo of beets growing in a garden]

– of my garden which is largely untended and left to survival of the fittest. But I never grew up growing beets. And I didn’t really become exposed to them until I went to college. I did my undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And it was there that I took a class called World Vegetable Crops and it was there that I was first exposed to all these fascinating aspects of this vegetable –

[Amy Freidig]

– the beet, and I was hooked.

So, then I went to graduate school for plant breeding and plant genetics at the University of Wisconsin –

[slide with a photo of Ms. Freidig working in her lab on the U.W.- Madison campus]

– and there I was lucky enough to work with Dr. Irwin Goldman in his carrot, onion, and beet breeding lab.

[Amy Freidig]

And in that lab, he and his students work to improve these vegetable crops that are grown throughout our state. And you’re – youre looking at a picture of me here working hard in the lab, –

[return to the slide with the photo of Ms. Freidig in the lab]

– with a – with a – working on a beet sample for my study. So, it was there that I got to work, you know, every day with this vegetable and really get to experience it and also to talk to a lot of people about the beet.

[new slide with a photo of four different varieties of beets]

So, that’s the neat thing about this vegetable is a lot of people have a story to tell about them. How they love them. How they hate them. How they grow em. How they can’t get em to grow. How they eat them. I’ve even had someone tell me about their grandma’s Harvard Beet recipe.

[Amy Freidig]

So, that’s the really neat thing about this vegetable is there’s always a story.

So today, I’m going to tell you the story of beets. And I know the title said Everything you ever wanted to learn or know about beets. And we’re not going to get to quite everything. We’re going to talk about the topics that I find fascinating. I’m going to tell you a little bit about the domestication, some related plant family members, we’re going to talk about its color and its flavor. And for me honestly this is a love story, okay.

[slide with a photo of beets cut into the shape of hearts]

I really love talking about this vegetable and today I want you to leave feeling this new sense of wonder over this – this vegetable and I know I’m talking to a room full of beet lovers –

[Amy Freidig]

– but I just hope – I hope your heart grows even a little bigger towards this vegetable.

So, let’s start at the beginning and let’s talk about the domestication of beets. So, what – what is domestication? I went online.

[slide with a graphic with the word Domestication and its definition as to adapt (a plant) so as to be cultivated by and beneficial to human beings]

I went to, you know, a – a dictionary website to get a general definition. And this is – when you Google it you get a bunch of them. And this is the definition that’s most applicable to us and I’ll read it. Domestication means to adapt a plant so as to be cultivated by and beneficial to human beings.

So, beets –

[Amy Freidig]

– so, beets are a domesticated crop that we have for many years grown and improved upon. So, it follows that the beets we grow in our gardens today didn’t start out that way.

So, wild beets originate from the Southeast shores of the Mediterranean –

[slide with a map of the Mediterranean sea and surrounding countries with the location of the origins of the beet circled in red]

– the Near East and Northern Africa. The area – that’s a world map there. It might be kind of light for you to see but it’s the area inside the red circle.

[Amy Freidig]

So consequently, because this is where they originated, they have a pretty good salt tolerance. And those beets that originated there didn’t look like the, you know, swollen red tennis balls that we’re used to growing in our gardens. They were a leaf beet. So, think more like a Swiss Chard or, you know, leaves.

And those type of leaf beets were actually cultivated –

[slide with a photo of leafy beets with the words Grown and consumed by the ancient Romans in a white box on top of the photo]

– by ancient Romans in their gardens. And it actually goes as far back as the ancient Greeks. Aristotle made mention of these in – in – in ancient texts and others as well. And these leaf beets were actually being cultivated in other parts of the world even before that.

So, domestication was going on there, likely with the Romans –

[Amy Freidig]

– cultivating these beets which they used as a vegetable crop as well as medicinally.

But we need to discuss how it got from that leafy crop to, you know, towards the more swollen rooted shaped vegetable, more like – more like the modern beet that we’re used to today. You know, and it didn’t just magically happen. You know, there – there wasn’t reference to – to these swollen rooted types until the 16th century. But somewhere back in history, there’s likely ancient plant breeding going on where, you know, these – these beets were selected for characteristics that were desirable, which eventually resulted in selection for the swollen rooted vegetables.

And some have also suggest – that’s a beet in the snow by the way –

[slide with a photo of a beet in the snow]

Some have suggested an interesting possibility for another way that his domestication might have happened. So, this possibility is this. As humans moved into Northern Europe –

[Amy Freidig]

– they – they experienced a shorter growing season and a colder, longer, harsher winter. So, you know, we’re coming out of winter here. I can – I’m sure it doesn’t take much for you to put yourself in that position. What – what are you going to need when you have a longer winter? You’re going to need a food source that stores that you can eat, you can access throughout the – that cold time. So, it’s possible that as the beet was traveled north with these people, people were selecting for this root crop that had – you know, it was a good solid sugary food source that could store really well through – throughout the summer. And so, they keep selecting and propagating these beets that are – that are big and it’s gonna keep selecting for those type of characteristics that are gonna get it closer and closer to the beets that we’re used to today. So, I think that’s really interesting to think about how, you know, this geographical situation may have influenced what – what plant characteristics people selected for.

And there’s also something that I find really elegant about this possibility and it has to do with how beets have a biennial life cycle.

[slide with the word Biennial on it]

So, if you’re not familiar with what a biennial is, I’m gonna explain it real quick.

[the words seed, germinates, grows, and beet animate on the slide from left to right]

A biennial takes two seasons to go from seed to seed.

[additional words overwinters and resprouts leaves and bolts animate on the slide]

And so, with a beet, in the first season –

[additional words pollination and seed animate on the slide]

– there you go, you’re gonna – youre gonna plant your beet seed. It’s gonna germinate. It’s gonna grow. It’s gonna produce leaves. And then that first season, you know, it’ll produce the root. Now normally, you know, vegetable gardeners are gonna stop there. They’re going to harvest the root. But depending on where you are, say in a climate not quite like Wisconsin, a little bit milder, the beet can overwinter outside and beets need to have an exposure to a certain – a – a cold treatment, a certain period of cold. They need to experience in order to flower the following season.

[Amy Freidig]

So, it can overwinter in warmer climates and then it can kind of come back to life, if you will, the following season, and uses that – you know, it’s got that sugary root. That’s what it’s using as energy to power flowering. It’ll shoot up a flower stock the following season. And then, you know, flowers, pollen, and produce seed. So, two seasons to go from seed to seed, that’s what’s a biennial.

So, rewind back in time and think to those earlier humans again that were selecting for those roots that had that stored sugar that they could store and use all winter long. And it was also those characteristics that were beneficial to the table beet for reproduction because that swollen sugary root could also help it, you know, have a lot of energy to flower well and reproduce to the next generation. So, I just kind of find that really elegant. It’s like getting two birds with one stone, you know. The humans were selecting for things, for characteristics that worked out for – for them and it also aided the plant and reproduction.

So, I real – I – I really like that domestication story and another thing that I really love about beets is that they’re not the only child of the beet world.

[slide with a photo of sliced beets on a table]

And that’s not a slam on only children. I can say that; I am one, so. Beets have what I like to think of as close brothers and sisters in the – in the plant world. And I want to introduce you to a few of them. And you may already know them, and you may already be growing them.

[slide with the title Table beet with its Latin name along with a photo of freshly picked table beets]

Well, let’s start out with the Table beet. This is star of the show today. And its scientific name is beta vulgaris, subspecies vulgaris, garden beet group.

[new slide titled Swiss chard with its Latin name and a photo of Swiss chard in a garden]

And here we have one of its closely related plant family members, Swiss chard. Beta vulgaris, subspecies vulgaris, leaf boot group, is its scientific name. And you’ll notice that it’s a pretty similar scientific name to the Table beet. And that kind of shows you how closely related these are. These different cultivated beet types. But, you know, they’re selected for different characteristics. The beet’s selected for, you know, that’s a root vegetable. This Swiss chard is – we’ve selected for a large palatable leaf that we can consume –

[Amy Freidig]

– as a vegetable. And as a vegetable, it’s eaten. You know, you can chop it up, saut it, but it’s also found in salad mixes.

[slide with a photo of the veins of Swiss chard close-up]

And it’s really beautiful.

This is a Swiss chard leaf and they come in a variety of different colors. This pink or red, yellow, orange, those can come in blends as well, where the different kinds are blended together in the packet.

[slide with a photo of non-pigmented Swiss chard growing in a garden]

And you’ll also, this is my – one of my favorites. It also comes with a non-pigmented petiole; this is on the right of that raised bed. That’s a Ford hook Giant, that’s the cultivar. And it produces these, like, big beautiful glossy green leaves. And they’re growing next to pea plants, so you can see how – how tall they can get. And what I really like about these is that, yes, they’re edible, but they also have ornamental value, and you can use them in container gardening –

[Amy Freidig]

– as well as borders. And if you’re familiar with the thriller, filler, spiller concept of container gardening, they make a great filler, and I think they also can make a really eye-popping thriller.

Oops.

Next up, a little bit more utilitarian, slightly less –

[slide with a photo of the Mangel or Fodder beer with its Latin name]

– beautiful beet or member of the beet family, Mangel or Fodder beet. So, this – this Mangel is growing in the ground here very similarly to a beet. It looks, you know, fairly – fairly close to it. It’s got the same type of shape. It’s not going to be that really pretty round tennis-ball shape. But a Mangel is – is – is a swarthy big root, full of sugar, stores really well, and it’s, because of that it’s ideal for animal feed.

[slide with a photo of picked Mangel beets lined up in a row at a Farmers Market]

And there’s another picture of it. You can -you can kind of – don’t get a really good sense of scale there but I’ve grown this and I’ve pulled them out, you know. Especially on edges, they can get to be really big.

[Amy Freidig, holding her hands in a large cirle]

That’s about, I dont know, six or eight inches across; something really hard you got to yank out of the ground. You can eat this. You can buy this seed. You can grow it in your garden. There’s a yellow, and I believe a red variety that you can buy online. And you may not want to wait till they get this big [holding her hands in a large circle] if you’re going to try to eat them. You might want to harvest them as like a little baby Mangel and give it a try.

[slide with a photo of a person holding up a Sugar beet with its Latin name in a white box]

And next up, the next brother or sister we have, is the sugar beet. And also not really a looker.

[laughter]

This – this beet is an important source of sucrose or sugar. Hence – hence the name. It – it can also reach large sizes and it’s white fleshed on the inside. I – I think the foliage is really pretty though. It’s this really, a – a pretty, light green I like.

[slide with a photo of a large mound of sugar beets in a field]

Here’s pictures, some big piles of it. It’s a very important crop here in the United States. It’s responsible for 55% of sugar production in the United States. And it’s grown in acreage throughout, but significant acreage is east of the Mississippi, the Far West and the Great Plains. And like with the Mangel, you can also try growing this in your own garden for fun. You can – you can get seed and I’ve grown it and eaten it –

[Amy Freidig]

– fresh out of the field. Yes, it’s sugary and sweet, also kind of tastes like soap.

[laughter]

But like with the Mangel, you might have a different, more pleasant culinary experience if you harvest them when they’re – when theyre little.

So, those are the extended cultivated brothers and sisters of the beet. But I also want to talk a little bit about the beets extended family. So, the Table beet and its closely related relatives are part of a –

[white slide with two worlds in black type, Chenopodiaceae and Amaranthaceae]

– plant family that was called the Chenopodiaceae. And in the late 90s it started, kind of – kind of changed and got in-into the plant family called the Amaranthaceae. So, you might, if you’re looking around, you might see both, reference to both – both families.

[new blank white slide]

But I want to show you some that you may not know are related to beet.

[a photo of spinach animates into the upper left corner of the blank slide]

So, we’ve got spinach. That’s in the Amaranthaceae with beet.

[a photo of Amaranth animates onto the lower right of the slide]

Amaranth.

[a photo of Celosia animates onto the center of the slide]

Celosia.

[a photo of Pigsweed animates into the lower left corner of the slide]

And everybody’s favorite weeds –

[a photo of Lambs Quarters animates into the upper right of the slide]

– Pigsweed and Lamb – Lamb’s Quarters in the top right. And so, if you’re ever weeding and – and, you know, when they’re – when theyre really small, and you think, Gosh those Lamb’s Quarters look an awful lot like my beet seedlings. It’s cause, yes, they do look very similar and that’s because they are in the – they’re related, okay?

So, one thing that I do want to point out that I also think is kind of cool, cause –

[Amy Freidig]

– I like knowing stories behind – behind plants, is I want to point out the Amaranth, that brightly colored pink seed head in the bottom right-hand corner.

[return to the slide with all the relatives of the beet]

So, Amaranth is something we grow around here ornamentally. It can be really striking. And another thing that you might not know is that this crop has an ancient history. It was grown as a grain. It was domesticated in South and Central America, India and Southeast Asia. And this plant, you can take the seed heads from – from these ancient varieties that they grew. They harvested them. They processed them. And then they were used as a nutritious –

[Amy Freidig]

– high-protein grain. So, it’s another cool example of an ornamental with this cool story behind it that has an edible history. I just get excited when there’s, you know, when there’s more to a plant than you think.

Alright, so, I’d feel a little bad if I let you leave today without an anatomy lesson. What is a beet really?

[slide of a photo of a golden beet sitting on the bottom of a plastic bucket]

What you’re seeing on the screen, I’m going to walk you through kind of a brief botanical look at the beet, so you know exactly what you’re dealing with this season. So, the – this – this is a golden beet. And it’s got a really nice tennis-ball shape there and that is a swollen taproot. That’s root tissue. But also, that little rat tail like structure going down, that is the taproot, too. And that helps anchor the beet to the ground and oftentimes you’re going to see this little fibrous roots coming off from the taproot and that also helps aide the beet in water and nutrient absorption.

You can’t see the leaves here. They’re off screen. But con-connecting the leaves to the rest of the beet are the petioles, and you can see that –

[Amy Freidig]

– here they’re yellow. They’re usually theyre – they’re brightly pigmented. And another cool –

[slide of a photo of a beet in cross-section]

– botanical and anatomical thing about the beet that I want to let you know about is the presence of something that’s not a terrifically common tissue type, but it’s called supernumerary cambia. Alright, want that one more time?

[Amy Freidig]

Supernumerary cambia. And what that is is you can see it. This beet, you know, has been sliced through here –

[return to the photo of the beet in cross-section]

– and you’re holding it open like that and you can see the concentric rings there. This is a Chioggia beet or a Candy Cane beet, some people call it. It’s really obvious here because the different rings are – have different pigment. But what that is, supernumerary cambia, is concentric rings of cambia tissue.

Cambia tissue is a plant tissue type that, it – it’s kind of responsible for growth. These cells grow and divide.

[Amy Freidig]

So – so , you know, as they’re growing and dividing, you’re adding more cells, it gets bigger. So, cambia helps it to grow. And so, that’s just a unique tissue type and you can see this when you – it doesn’t have to be a Candy Cane beet – you can cut them all and you can kind of see this supernumerary cambia that is a distinctive hallmark of the Table beet.

Now, has anyone grown their own beet seed in here?

Not – a couple, okay, cool.

If not, you’re in for a treat, in my opinion. So, when you’re growing it in your garden for a vegetable, you’re only going to get that first season in. You’re not going to take it to two seasons to see – or try to grow seed, to try to make seed. Unless, of course, it’s a really bad stressful year, you know, heat, drought. In that instance, you may see a beet flower or send up its flower stalk. And what you’re –

[slide with a photo of a flowering beet stalk]

– looking at here is a flower stalk on a yellow beet and so, you can picture the beet in the ground and the flower stalk just goes straight up. This one hasn’t – a lot of the flowers haven’t opened yet, so it’s kind of earlier on.

[slide with a close-up photo of a beet flower]

But here’s a really up-close picture of the beet flower. Beet flowers. So, think of a lot of our ornamental flowering plants, those that have big bright bombastic flowers. Those plants are investing their energy in producing these really beautiful, bright, colorful, advertisements to pollinators.

[Amy Freidig]

Beets don’t invest their energy in that because they’re wind pollinated. So, they, instead, invest their energy in making a ton of flowers that can produce a ton of pollen that the wind can carry to another plant. Beets are self-incompatible, meaning that if I’m a beet plant and I have a flower on me, the pollen from my flower can’t go to another flower on me and pollinate it. It has to go to another person, or another – another beet plant’s flower. So, beet – and the pollen can fly vast distances on the wind. Beet fields need to be isolated by up to a kilometer. That’s about 2/3 of a mile because the pollen can – can go that far on a breeze and, you know, if you’re growing beet seed intentionally, you don’t want to kind of mismatch your pollen and get a beet plant that you didn’t intend to get.

And I mentioned that they’re self-incompatible, meaning they can’t pollinate themselves and that’s in general too. But plant breeders at the University of Wisconsin were actually able – discovered a way to make them self-compatible, meaning that a flower on me could pollinate a flower on me and the result of that was the ability to create dif -new and different breeding systems for beet that results in hybrid beet production, beet seed production as well.

So, when pollination occurs you get seed.

[slide with a photo of a close-up of beet seeds with the word multigerm in white letters below]

So, those – those little balls on there are, that’s – thats a beet, what we call a beet seed. But a beet seed is actually a package deal. So, there are anywhere between one and five beet plants contained in one of those quirky looking things. Commonly you’ll see two to three. And so, the – the seed is actually a seed ball. And it forms when the flowers – I mean you could – you cloud see it a little on that closeup picture prior with all those flowers close – close together. As they – as pollination occurs and the seeds are set and growing, it’ll fuse – fuse down as it dries down, and fuse together. And then it’ll produce that quirky substance that you see – see there, that brown substance.

[Amy Freidig]

So, it’s multiple plants per seed. And this characteristic as you see on the screen is called multigerm. And so, consequently if you’re planting multigerm seed and you – you plant it in your garden and what a surprise, you have way more beets than you bargained for. You will need to thin. And you might also be wondering, Hey, is there such a thing as a, you know, one seed per round ball I put in the ground? And yes, there – there are. That characteristic is called monogerm. And this is a – a lot more important especially like in sugar beet, which is heavily, you know, it’s an ergonomic crop and it’s heavily mechanized. So, you need that type of precision. So, you know, one plant per seed versus an un – a variable amount. But there are garden beet cultivars that are monogerm. You just have to look for it. It should – it’ll say it in your seed catalog. Otherwise, a lot of the ones that you’re going to plant in your garden are going to be multigerm.

So, if you’re a gardener like me, you buy a packet of seeds, you plop it in, see what happens. But some people prefer to do a more competent job and want to know how to actually grow these beets.

[white slide with the question How do I grow them? in large black letters]

So, I’m going to give you a couple of tips here. I’m sure a lot of you already know em.

[new white slide with a bulleted list including light, well-drained soil and avoid crusting in large black type]

So, beets like a nice loamy light, well-drained soil, and this is especially true during germination and if you have clay soils. So, what can happen is if you have the surface of the soil get wet and then dry, it’ll crust over. And the baby beet seeds are going to be, you know, seedlings –

[Amy Freidig]

– are going to be knocking on the ceiling trying to get through and they can’t because of that crusting. So, you want to try to avoid that. You can do this by trying to keep the soil, you know, moist throughout. But don’t overdo it. You don’t want to subject the seedlings – you – you don’t want to drown them. You don’t want damping off. So be reasonable about that but try to keep it moist to avoid that issue.

You can fertilize –

[white slide with the bulleted list fertilize according to soil test and thinning in large black type]

– but I always recommend doing so according to a soil test and proceeding based on what that says. And I already mentioned the thinning aspect of this. Seedlings will need to be thinned because if you’re especial – if youre planting a multigerm seed because you’re going to have more than you bargained for. And you want to go – aim for two in – bet – two inches between each plant.

[new white slide with the bulleted list beets like it cooler! and early spring and late summer in large black type]

So, in terms of planting times, beets like cooler temperatures, so you can start thinking of planting your beets as early as a month before the final frost. But I’ve planted them as late as even early June. This is a great crop to do a multiple plantings of. You can –

[Amy Freidig]

– do one earlier in the season and then later to have a fall crop. You can do this for – if you’re growing Swiss chard, you can do that as well if you wish. When you harvest stuff that’s gone through the heat of the summer, especially if you’re eating your beet greens too, or your – your Swiss chard leaf crop, those are going to be a little, little less palatable in the heat of the summer. And beets that, beet roots that you are going to eat and harvest in the dead of summer might be a little woodier cause – cause of the temperature.

And this seems kind of self-explanatory –

[white slide with the phrase Dont forget to weed! in large black type]

– but weeding is important. Especially when they’re so little. They don’t need that competition from other plants. They – they don’t need to out-compete them for resources. That’s not gonna help anything.

[Amy Freidig]

The nice thing about beets though, is once they start to canopy out, you know, those big, beautiful leaves, they’re going to be doing your job for you. They will suppress a lot of – a fair amount of weed growth with the shade they provide with their big leaves.

So, hopefully that works out for you and you get stunning roots like these.

[slide with a photo of a variety of freshly picked beets on a canvas]

But a lot of times, that doesn’t happen for people. And so, the number one thing that people come and talk to me about beets, they’ll come and they’ll say to me – and I hope this is none of you in here –

[Amy Freidig]

– cause I know I’ve talked to someone today who we – we had this exact conversation. They’ll say to me, My beets didn’t make roots, why? And so, this is the list I run through with them of – of the general culprits that you could try to correct for next year. And sometimes I wonder when they’re like, Oh I did it all. I’m like, Did you really? Are you sure? So first, water. Did you make sure that they got enough water? You know, when the plant needs water is it when – imagine that growing beet root that – there’s a lot of water in there. It needs water to be able to take up to – to – to add mass to itself. They need about an inch a week. But, you know, I’ve – Ive grown them in drought years as well and still gotten roots. But water is something to pay attention to.

Thinning – did you actually make sure to thin? If, as you can imagine, if theyre – you’ve got a really crowded stand, there’s not room to – to grow and enlarge. They’re going to be knocking into each other and that’s going to affect how big they get.

Fertilizing, this is also a common one. If you are adding too much nitrogen, what you’re telling the beet to do is put on big, beautiful vegetative growth. Some people will say, Oh yeah, I’ve got these great looking leaves but no roots. That might be the reason why. So, you know, depending on what you’re putting on there and what you’re encouraging the beet to do. Are you encouraging it to vegetatively grow? You don’t want to necessarily do that too much.

Also, cultivar. And this might be kind of almost experimental for you and anecdotal. But there are certain cultivars that I have had very little luck growing to produce good roots. One of the ones that – that’s really common and really gorgeous is Bull’s Blood. It produces this really beautiful purple leaf that’s really great ornamentally. I mean its – it’s fantastic. But I’ve never been able to produce good-sized pretty roots. They – they – I do get roots, but not – not the big ones that I’d hoped for that would be very nice for – for peeling and eating. Also, there are some cultivars that are not going to get that tennis-ball shape. So, there’s one, for example, called Cylindra, which is a cylindrical beet. So, just make sure you know what you’re growing. And if you’re having a little trouble with one cultivar, try another one. There are a lot of really great open pollinated cultivars and hybrid cultivars that you can try and see what – what works for you.

Soil we’ve already talked about but that’s another culprit. If you have a clayey soil, that might be an issue, especially if early on during germination time if the soil crusts over.

And finally, sunlight. This also seems kind of obvious, but are you making sure that they’re getting full sun? You know, six – six hours or whatever a day. Or are they kind of in partial sun? Because that’s what they need in order to, you know, the leaves that in order to produce that sugar to store in the root.

So, overall, though, I have found that beets are pretty easy to grow. And most people have some good luck doing it. I mean, even my two-year-old can take – take a handful of seeds and kind of smear them around and we still end up getting beets.

So, now that we’ve talked about how to grow them, I want to talk about the two other things that I love about the story of this vegetable and that’s color and taste. So, let’s start with the color. So, as you know, beets have this vibrant amazing color. And I don’t really feel like a picture, you know –

[slide with two photos one of red beet sauce and one of yellow beet sauce]

– the picture on the screen is going to do that justice. So, you know, take a little trip in your mind now to your kitchen and imagine you’re cutting open that beet and that red pigment, and if there’s water, you know, a drop of that water with that pigment gets anywhere. It’s – its intense, it’s vibrant. There’s nothing like it, I think.

And what you’re looking at here on the screen, on the left is some ground up red beet. And as that really vibrant violet-red color and on the right is a ground up yellow beet. And the pigments that are responsible –

[new slide with the title Betalains and the organic chemistry representations of Betacyanin for the red beet and Betaxanthin for the yellow beet]

– for all that color are called betalain pigments. And the pigment for – that makes the red pigment is called Betacyanin, and the pigment that does yellow is Betaxanthin.

[new slide with an illustration of a plant cell with the vacuole indicated by a red arrow]

And these plant pigments are stored in the vacuole of the plants cell. You’re looking at an electron micrograph there of a plant cell and that big white area there is called the vacuole. That’s a membrane browned organelle where the plant stores water, toxins, small organic molecules and pigments.

And these pigments are found in flowers, fruits, as well as some vegetative tissues.

[new white slide with the indication of the plant order Caryophyllales with a red arrow pointing to a statement in a red box meaning Contain betalains]

And these – these pigments are found exclusively in one plant order. And remember order refers to kingdom, phylum, order. I got to think back. Gen –

[Amy Freidig]

– you get what I’m saying. I – I can normally do the acronym in my head but I’m failing, but, you know, all the way down to species. So, order is kind of, it’s not as broad of a classification as, you know, classification is how we classify living things, how we put them into organized groups. Kingdom’s pretty broad. Species is super, you know, specific. Order is kind of in the middle here, so it contains a fair number of living – living things.

But the only plant order that contains these pigments – whoops – is called Caryophyllales.

[return to the Caryophyllales slide]

That’s how you say that really neat word at the top. It rolls off your tongue pretty well. Caryophyllales. And what’s interesting about that, is that all other plant pigments are kind of ubiquitous across the board. You know, other – other plants will have, or other orders have all these other plant pigments in common, but this plant order is the only one that contains these vibrant pigments.

Why? I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

[slide with four photos of plants that contain the betalain pigment including celosia, four oclocks, moss flower and bougainvillea]

And here are some common ornamental plants that these pigments are found in. Celosia, four o’clocks, moss flower, and bougainvilleas.

[new slide with two photos, one of swiss chard and one of red beets]

So, also, obviously in the beet. And these are the pigments in the petioles and mid-veins of leaf crops like Swiss chard or also in the beet greens responsible for the pigment there in the petiole and the veins.

[new slide with a photo of a bunch of red beets]

Whoops.

[return to the slide of the swiss chard and red beets]

[return to the slide with the photo of a bunch of red beets]

And you might be thinking, Okay, well if I’ve got a red beet, I’ve got the red pigment, and if I’ve got a yellow beet, I’ve got the yellow pigment, right? Well not – not quite true.

[Amy Freidig]

If you’ve got the red beet, it actually has both pigments.

[return to the slide with the group of red beets now with three red bars and one yellow bar across the bottom of it]

It’s got in a ratio of three parts red to one part yellow. And you don’t see the yellow because the vibrant red pigment masks it. But a yellow beet, that has the genetic makeup so – such that it cannot produce the red pigment. It just produces the yellow pigment. And then there’s the white beet. Do we have any fans of Blankoma, the white beet in here?

[Amy Freidig with wide shot of the audience with very few hands raised]

Keep your hands down. Oh, we have one, I’m sorry. I’m gonna – Im gonna slander it now. Then there’s the white beet which – which has the genetic makeup such that it does not produce any pigments. Why you would grow such a beet, I don’t know.

[laughter]

And its – this pigment is also found –

[slide with the title Food colorants above a photo of yogurt]

– as a food colorant. So, in the late 70s interest arose in finding a substit – an alternative to synthetically produced food dyes. So, they started looking at Table beet. But the issue with that is, you know, you’ve got this root that’s, yes –

[Amy Freidig]

– filled with pigment, but also water and sugar. You gotta, you know, distill that pigment down, get rid of that other stuff. And that takes time, and it costs a lot of money. So, it was cost prohibitive – prohibitive to use.

So, breeding efforts were undertaken at the University of Wisconsin and what they – over a number of years – what they were doing was breeding for a – a – concentrated pigment in a beet. And they were successful, so much so that by, when it was last looked at 2 – in 2008, it was only two and a half times more expensive to produce food dye from these betalain pigments than its synthetic counterpart, which is really a success story. And if these pigments – or these food – natural food dyes are going to be found in things that are not heated. It breaks down when it’s heated.

But it’s- its found, like, everywhere now. I mean, you can look in powdered drink mixes, cosmetics, meat products, yogurts, ice creams. I mean, I looked. I was surprised. I saw beet juice used as food dye in frozen salmon patties the other day. Who would have thought? But – but they – they’re in little fish crackers. Theyre – go to your store, you’ll be surprised. The beet is everywhere.

So, I would argue that people associate beets with this bright red color and that the second thing that people associate with beets is the taste.

[slide with a photo of a plastic fork stuck in the soil of a potted plant]

Not a lot of people would disagree with me on that. And a lot of people say that beets taste like dirt. Hence the picture of the fork in the soil there. And they’re not that far from the truth. I’m going to tell you why.

[slide with the title Geosmin with its organic chemistry diagram below]

So, beets contain a taste and aroma compound called geosmin. So, geosmin is a volatile compound and what volatile means is that it’s able to go from being in the liquid state and it likes to go and be in the gas state. It does that very easily, going from being in a liquid to in a gas state.

[Amy Freidig]

So, geosmin is a volatile compound that gives that – the beet its characteristic earthy taste and aroma. And the reason that people associate this flavor with soil is because this compound is also found in soil. Or more specifically, in the microorganisms that are prevalent there.

So, you may have heard this before that soil is full of life.

[slide with a photo of a hand whose fingers are holding soil]

If you take a teaspoon of soil, it’s amazing. There’s about a billion bacteria, four million fungi, and bunch of other stuff. Chock full of life. And so, the microorganisms that are in that soil, some of them manufacture geosmin, this compound in them and then when they die, they release it. And so, remember it’s volatile so it likes to go from being in a liquid state to being in a gas state. You know, so, it’s coming off and we can smell it. So, when you’re out there digging in your garden after, you know, a nice rain has happened a couple days ago, you’re turning it over –

[Amy Freidig]

– you get that really strong fresh soil smell. Well, geosmin is one of the main contributors to that aroma.

And it’s also in beets.

[slide with a the word Beets spelled using slices of beets]

So, there’s been research done to determine if the beet is producing this endogenously – by – on its own or if it’s somehow assimilating it through an association with other microorganisms. And research has supported the idea that beets are able to produce this compound by themselves but there – there’s also the possibility that other microorganisms –

[Amy Freidig]

– and their associations may have something to do with this process. But – and there are specific research studies looking at this.

But it’s also kind of interesting to think about. You know, a carrot, for example, that grows in a very similar way. It grows in the ground surrounded by soil. No geosmin, no earthy flavor. So, why the beet? Why does the beet have this? This earthy compound. I don’t know.

[laughter]

And we are super-duper sensitive to it.

[slide with the statement Humans are very sensitive to it! with the statistic in a box, 10-20 parts geosmin per a trillion parts water]

We can detect it at 10-20 parts geosmin per trillion parts of water, which is kind of hard to fathom. That’s very sensitive. And because of that, it’s considered a contaminant. So, it’s been found in water, cheeses, beans, fishes and wines. Although with wines, with earthier wines I should say –

[Amy Freidig]

– it’s not necessarily considered a contaminant; it’s considered part of contributing to the overall flavor profile. So, it’s kind of a positive in terms of that.

And geosmin isn’t a toxicological threat as a contaminant. But it – it’s more of an issue because of the flavor and aroma it – it imparts. If you’re going to your tap and you get some water and it smells like dirt, you’re going to be a little concerned. So, that’s why it’s considered a contaminant.

So, it also makes sense that when it’s in a beet, some people might feel like they’re eating dirt and they might really hate that for some reason. But some people really love it and want more of it.

So, when I was in graduate school, one of the things I looked at was a bunch of different cultivars to see what beets had higher levels of geosmin and what beets had lower levels of geosmin. And besides just being interesting to know, this type of information is – is basic information that you need in order to start breeding for beets with higher or lower levels of this compound.

So, what I had to do was grow a bunch of different beets –

[slide with a photo of a large beet field]

– in a couple locations over a couple of years, take a bunch of samples and run them through a very fascinating and fancy machine called a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. And what that machine does is it measures volatile compounds at very small concentrations. So, you can imagine having like a glass vial with some ground up beet –

[Amy Freidig]

– like a beet milkshake in the bottom. And the geosmin that’s in the – the liquid beet would kind of come up. You know, you can’t see it, but it’s existing in the gas state at the top of the vial. And I could measure those very small levels of that – that – that gas essentially with this machine.

So, what I found out was that the beet that I looked at that produced the lowest amount of geosmin was a golden beet called Touchstone Gold.

[slide with three pictures, one of a Golden beet, one of Bulls Blood beet stems in a garden and one of a Candy Cane beet cut in two]

And the two of the beets that generally produce the higher levels of geosmin were Bull’s blood, which we talked about earlier, and it’s in that purple foliage on the top of the screen, where – so Bull’s Blood and Chioggia, the Candy Cane beet, as well as a sugar beet that I grew.

So, this – this was interesting, and also anecdotally, this was interesting because people will come up to you and say, you know, Oh, the –

[Amy Freidig]

– the yellow beets, they’re – I like them more. They’re sweeter. Well, are they necessarily sweeter? Or maybe people reacting to a lower geosmin level? It doesn’t taste as earthy. It doesn’t taste like dirt. So, people think it’s sweeter. I don’t know, maybe you can identify with that in your – your beet eating. And finding out this information helped me to initiate some breeding populations for higher and lower levels of geosmin and that work is still being continued today in –

[slide with a photo of beets being grown in a greenhouse on the UW-Madison campus]

– Dr. Irwin Goldman’s carrot, onion, and beet breeding lab. And you’re actually seeing a picture on the screen there from a – the winter nursery, winter breeding nursery, in the greenhouse for breeding beets.

[new slide of a photo of sliced beets in a colander]

And for those of you who really, really don’t like that earthy flavor, there is a small sliver of hope. Cooking has been shown to decrease the content of geosmin by up to 66%. So, that’s like steaming or boiling.

[Amy Freidig]

But remember we are very, very sensitive to it. So, you still may hate them because they taste like dirt still to you.

And for that small subsection of people, hopefully you can get aboard the beet train by eating the greens.

[slide with a photo of beet greens]

So, as beets have kind of enjoyed a Renaissance over the past number of years, you can definitely find more beet greens in salad mixes for example. They’re harvested when they’re about six to nine centimeters long, so, and you can harvest them off of your own plants and eat them. You can saut them like you do chard, or you can use them in a salad as well. And because of that beautiful pigment in there, they add a really nice splash of color.

[new slide with a photo a single picked red beet]

So, I’d like to wrap things up by now and in a minute, we’ll take any questions. So, today –

[Amy Freidig]

– we’ve talked about some of my favorite topics about the beet. We talked about the domestication, the members of its fam-family, we had a very brief anatomy lesson, we talked about how to grow it, how to not grow it, its color, and its earthiness. And today I hope you’re going to be leaving thinking about this vegetable as fascinating, even if you can’t stand to eat it. And because I consider this a love story, and we’re days away from Valentine’s Day here, I’m going to end with a little love poem dedicated to my favorite vegetable.

[laughter]

Beets are red and yellow too,

[return to the slide of the photo of the single beet now with a heart over it]

I can’t wait to grow them in my garden this year,

you’ll join me, won’t you?

[laughter]

Thank you very much.

[applause]