NORTH AMERICAN SUGARBEET HARVEST WRAPS UP WITH SOLID RESULTS

BY ANN BAILEY, EMILY BEAL, NOAH FISH, MIKKEL PATES AND JENNY SCHLECHT

The 2021 growing season has been hot and dry for most of the U.S.’s sugarbeet growing regions. That hasn’t stopped most of North America’s sugar companies from posting yields ranging from average to records.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Crop Progress report published Nov. 8, sugarbeet harvest was considered 96% completed by Nov. 7, ahead of the five-year average. That statistic only includes results from the four largest sugarbeet growing states: Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho and Michigan. But companies throughout the continent confirmed that they were wrapping up what has been, overall, a positive harvest, despite struggles.

American Crystal Sugar

As of early November, with the vast majority of the crop harvested, American Crystal Sugar’s farmers had produced 11.77 million tons of sugarbeets, said Steve Rosenau, American Crystal Sugar director of agriculture. Yields averaged 28.7 tons per acre, he said.

Several inches of rain in the late summer and fall of 2021, combined with warm temperatures encouraged root growth. Temperatures were so unseasonably warm that the onset of this year’s harvest, which was scheduled to begin Oct. 1, was delayed by about 10 days.

That was just one of the challenges growers faced in the 2021 growing season. In the spring, dry conditions caused poor germination in some fields. American Crystal sugar initiated a voluntary program in which farmers could plant additional acres if they chose to do so, pushing acreage to 410,000, Rosenau said.

Wind and dry conditions also created production problems. However, in summer and early fall, several inches of much-needed rain fell in the Red River Valley. Tonnage grew by about 2.7 per acre.

“It went from being a less than average crop to about an average crop,” Rosenau said.

Sugar content, in general, is lower in the southern Red River Valley and higher in the north, but on average is about 17.9%, Rosenau said.

Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative

As of early November, with about 95% of the Wahpeton, North Dakota-based cooperative’s sugarbeets dug, the average yield was slightly less than 30 tons per acre, said Mike Metzger, MinnDak Farmers Co-Op vice president of agriculture.

The 500 farmers who grow sugarbeets for Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative planted about 105,000 acres. Metzger’s expectations changed throughout the season, as confidence from early planting gave way to reduced estimates in dry conditions. Late rains made a difference.

“This crop put on over one-third of its root mass during early harvest,” Metzger said on Nov. 3. “We’ve never seen that.”

The crop also had sugar content of 17.9%, which is an excellent amount, he said.

The Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative board voted in late October to have farmers set aside 7% of their acreage with the understanding that percentage could change. It remained in place as of Nov. 3.

Warm temperatures delayed the start of the stockpile harvest, and freezing nighttime temperatures in early November raised concerns about frost damage on a small percentage of beets.

Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative

Farmers who grow sugarbeets for Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative in 2021 harvested the highest tonnage per acre in the company’s 47-year history.

“We are going to harvest around 36.5 tons per acre. That’s a record by 6 tons,” said Todd Geselius, Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Co-Op vice president of agriculture.

About 95% of the company’s sugarbeets were harvested as of Nov. 3, and total production was estimated to be slightly less than 3.6 million tons, he said.

Farmers who grow sugarbeets for the company planted 121,385 acres of sugarbeets in 2021, but will have to leave about 20% of those in the field, Geselius said.

Though conditions were dry early, rains started falling in late summer, and the crop turned around. The amount of growth during that two-month period was unprecedented.

While the warm temperatures delayed the start of the company’s stockpile harvest, the warm weather in early October, and the month before that, resulted in the sugarbeets putting on additional tonnage.

Amalgamated Sugar

Amalgamated Sugar expected yield to be just shy of 40 tons per acre as of Nov. 5, 2021, with less than 6,000 acres remaining to be harvested, according to Brodie Griffin, Amalgamated Sugar’s director of agriculture.

More than 50% of the remaining acres were in Treasure Valley. Griffin explained that southern Idaho and eastern Oregon had received several inches of rain in the preceding month. But even with the difficulties, Amalgamated Sugar expected to wrap up harvest operations in the second week of November.

“The wet October weather has created muddy conditions for our Growers and they have been stalwart to get the crop out promptly,” Griffin said. “Luckily, we have not received extreme cold weather during harvest

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