Sugar beet is an important technical crop in Russia, with annual gross harvests ranging from 45 to 53 million tonnes. The technical and economic performance indicators of agricultural enterprises and sugar factories depend on the content of the target component in the root crops – sucrose – which determines the importance of its accurate determination. The sample preparation algorithms outlined in GOST R 53036-2008 «Sugar beet. Test methods» have largely become outdated. The aim of the research was to study different variants of digerate sample preparation for polarimetric determination of sugar content in sugar beet, to update the methodology, and to establish its metrological characteristics. The object of the research was the methodology for determining sugar content in sugar beet by the polarimetric method. The subject of the research was variants of digerate sample preparation using clarifiers – lead acetate and aluminium sulphate; variants of using filtering agents and dosing of clarifiers. The studies were conducted in series of 30 sugar beet samples from the 2025 and 2026 harvests grown in the Kursk and Belgorod regions. The difference in sugar content determined by the cold-water digestion method compared to the reference hot-water digestion method with different clarifiers did not exceed a maximum of 0.24 %, on average 0.17 %, which confirms the interchangeability of clarifiers. When using kieselguhr as a filtering agent, the transparency of the digerate increased by 25 %, and the filtration duration decreased by half; the difference in sugar content did not exceed 0.11% on average, with no influence of the application method. The principle of clarifier dosing – by weight or by volume – does not affect the result of sugar content determination. Under industrial conditions, the possibility of using the updated methodology on robotic sugar content determination lines has been confirmed. Metrological characteristics have been established for the updated methodology, which allows for the revision of GOST R 53036.

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