Update on Adoption of Glyphosate-Tolerant Sugar Beet in the United States

The United States (US) is one of the world's largest users of sugar (sucrose). In 2013, 11,396,000 metric tonnes, raw value of sugar were used domestically in the US. About 46% of this sugar was produced from sugar beet grown in the US and the remainder was from cane sugar produced in the US or imported from about 40 different countries. The sugar beet producing states in the US are Minnesota, Idaho, North Dakota, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, California, Colorado and Oregon. Prior to 2007, only conventional sugar beet was grown in the US. The widespread availability of glyphosate-tolerant sugar beet seed in the US started in 2008 and resulted in rapid adoption of this technology, so much so that, by 2010, 98–100% of all sugar beet was glyphosate-tolerant. California was the last state to adopt glyphosate-tolerant sugar beet after it was de-regulated for the second time by USDA-APHIS in 2012. This article describes the consequences of almost 100% adoption of the technology of weed control and development of resistant weeds in rotations dominated by GM crops.