Sugar Beets: A Classic Case of ‘Good News, Bad News’

Sugar Beets: A Classic Case of ‘Good News, Bad News’

By Dave Bonner, Powell Tribune (WY)
Sept. 23, 2016

The headlines vary widely.

On one hand, the 2016 sugar beet crop in the Lovell factory district of Western Sugar Cooperative is on track to post another strong showing. Officials look for a yield averaging 28.9 tons to the acre, with sugar content of 17.5 percent.

Still, Rodriguez finds a silver lining in the clouds — both companywide and for the grower base.

The price of sugar is off at the moment, but there is improvement on the horizon, he said.

“There are some production problems worldwide. According to the economists, there is going to be a little shortage of sugar worldwide, and that will mean higher sugar prices in a few years,” he said.  “I’m just an optimist. You have to be.”

And so it becomes something of a waiting game, nothing new in the commodity business.

U.S. sugar glut

“The problem we have in the United States right now is we have a glut of sugar. It will take a little time to work through that,” Rodriguez noted. “We (as an industry) are still trying to work with Mexico to curb the unlimited import of highly subsidized sugar that has been dumped into our market through the North American Free Trade (NAFTA) program.”

And then there is the issue of planting with genetically modified Roundup Ready sugar beet seed. The beet seed has been fully cleared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but anti-GMO (genetically modified organism) advocates continue to lobby against it.

“It’s part of the reason why the price of sugar is where it is, because of the perception that GMO is bad,”  Rodriguez said.

He maintains that study after study has shown no ill effects of crops developed by GMO technology.

“We’re working on a huge program as an industry, and with other commodity groups, trying to educate about the advantages of GMO technology,” he added. “On a sustainability level, we’re better for the environment. We used to spray two or three times with five or six different chemicals. That’s been eliminated, and now we spray a couple of times only with one chemical — Roundup, which has proven very effective.”

Early dig by contract

The harvest of 16,100 acres of sugar beets in the Lovell factory district began with the scheduled early dig on Sept. 8. Growers will deliver from approximately 15 percent of their contracted acreage in the early harvest to enable the processing campaign to begin at the factory.

Regular harvest of the balance of the crop begins Oct. 2.

For years, predictions have held out the prospect of a district average of 30 tons of beets to the acre. It hasn’t been in the final numbers yet, but Rodriguez thinks the day of a 30-ton average is coming.

“I think you’ll see it,” he said. “The genetic improvements in beet seeds are pushing us toward that. They’re getting average yields as high as 32.5 tons to the acre in the Lower Yellowstone Valley in Montana. We haven’t just because of our climate. They have high daytime temperatures and warm nights. We have high temperatures daytime and cooler nights.”

However, the focus of beet production today is less on tonnage and more on sugar content.

Quality drives contract

“The contract with growers is more quality driven,” Rodriguez said.

Last year the district average for sugar content was 17.5 percent, and the forecast for this year’s crop comes in right at the same number.

“We’ve been close to averaging 18 percent sugar before, but it’s been a few years since we’ve hit that 18 percent,” he said.

The early dig has something to do with the final average, as sugar content is lower in the early harvested beets. Growers are paid a per-ton incentive payment during the early harvest to compensate for the fact that yields and sugar content are both lower in early September than they would be in the regular harvest.

“Sugar content is a hard one to figure,” Rodriguez said. “Mother Nature gives it to you. It’s a lot contingent on when the plant decides it needs to start to store sugar to get through the winter. It’s hard to manipulate.”

Company and growers will monitor temperatures through the fall harvest. It was a good growing season “as long as you were able to keep your crop wet” during the hot summer, Rodriguez said.

Cool by piling time

The 30-day weather forecast indicates temperatures will remain pretty warm in September, Rodriguez said. Beets are hauled directly to the Lovell factory during the controlled dig of the early harvest so temperatures can be managed to minimize spoilage.

“The real issue is in October, when we start to put them into longterm storage. We want to put the beets in the pile cool,” he said.

“Years ago, we lost beets in the pile, and now we’ve learned to avoid piling in the hottest weather because the beets burn up sugar in the pile. The beets automatically respirate for a little while before they go into dormancy, and their temperature goes up and the sugar goes down,” he explained.

Last October, warm temperatures forced Western Sugar to back off on how many beets were stored on the ground during the month.

“We just kind of limped along through October, taking only so many beets,” he said. “As a result, we were into November still digging beets.”

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