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Northern China faces water scarcity, restricting water usage in place across Inner Mongolia's western region. The integrated irrigation and fertilization model for sugar beet is undergoing rapid development and application in production. However, there is a concerning trend in production where the frequency of irrigation and fertilization is being increased blindly, resulting in the wastage of valuable water and fertilizer resources. Limiting water and fertilizer usage is an effective approach to improve sugar beet production efficiency. Sugar beets are a significant sugar crop in China. A split-plot design was employed to examine the impact of reducing water and fertilizer use on sucrose metabolism in sugar beet root. Our study was performed at the Ulanqab Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences in Inner Mongolia from 2022 to 2023. Three levels of fertilization and irrigation were utilized. We investigated the interactions between irrigation and fertilization on sucrose accumulation in sugar beet root. We examined key enzyme activities involved in sucrose metabolism alongside their gene expression levels. The findings suggested that reducing irrigation by 15%, fertilization by 10%, or both irrigation by 15% and fertilization by 10%, increased sucrose concentrations of sugar beets compared to the control group administered conventional water and fertilizer. Over the two-year period, the average sucrose concentration increased by 0.45, 0.57, and 0.65 degrees, respectively, under each treatment. Subsequent research verified that appropriately reducing water and fertilizer can regulate the expression of enzyme genes, thus influencing enzyme activity. Moreover, due to the higher efficiency of enzyme synthesis compared to decomposition, it contributed to an increase in net enzyme activity. These findings suggest that an appropriate reduction of water and fertilizer can improve sucrose synthesis rates and increase the sucrose concentration in sugar beets, providing a theoretical basis for environmentally friendly generation and enhanced efficiency in sugar beet growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sugar beet is a characteristic cash crop in Inner Mongolia, and water and fertilizer is an important management measure in sugar beet planting. The interaction between water and nitrogen is of practical significance in regulating the growth of sugar beet. The coordinated relationship between water and fertilizer can achieve the purpose of water saving, fertilizer saving, cost saving and efficiency increasing. The cultivation method of drip irrigation under plastic mulch was adopted in this study. The effects of water nitrogen supply on water metabolism and photosynthetic performance of sugar beet were studied through two years of field experiments in order to provide theoretical basis for improving the utilization efficiency of water and fertilizer and rational fertilization and irrigation. The results showed that the water nitrogen supply level and its proportion had influence with the water potential, Transpiration rate (Tr), Photosynthetic rate (Pn) and stomatal Conductance (Cond) of sugar beet leaves. And they were significantly positively correlated with the yield of sugar beet. When the water potential of sugar beet leaves was −0.38 ∼ −0.23 MPa in the period of leaf fast growth, root and sugar growth, and −0.45 ∼ −0.38 MPa in the period of sugar accumulation, the yield and sugar content were the highest. Under the coupling condition of water and nitrogen, the irrigation amount of sugar beet was 1350 ∼ 1427 m3·ha−1, and the nitrogen application amount was 150 ∼ 179.22 kg·ha−1. Sugar beet has the highest utilization rate of light energy and yield and sugar content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]