In Europe, campaign lengths have increased to up to 120 days necessitating a longer sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) storage period post-harvest. Sugar beet harvest is performed by 6-row self-propelled harvesters. Depending on the
harvester setting (cleaning turbine rotational speed, har-vester driving speed), harvest can cause considerable injuries to the beet taproot, thereby caus-ing mass and sugar losses during storage. The proportion of the cleaning unit, when adjusted to an efficient reduction of soil tare, on injuries in relation to damages exerted by other harvester sections has not yet been quantified. Further, knowledge is lacking regarding the quantitative relationship between injuries and storage sugar losses. Field tests with 6–row self–propelled har-vesters equipped with cleaning turbines and long-term storage experiments under controlled conditions were conducted to answer such questions. The field experiments were conducted in farmers’ fields in Central and Southern Lower Saxony, Germany, in 2016 and 2019. Findings in-dicated that root tip breakage caused by the cleaning turbines was lower than that caused by the lifter shares, and successive sections up to the bunker. Root tip breakage significantly increased with the turbine rotational speed, and to a minor extent with the harvester driving speed. Break-age explained approximately 30% of the variation in sugar losses during storage. Thus, root tip breakage at harvest appears to be a feasible indicator of sugar losses and for designing a driver assistance system to safeguard low beet damage.