Warmth Would Sweeten Beet-Growing Conditions
May 17, 2004
By Ann Bailey, Agweek Staff Writer

Sugar beet seeding across the Northern Plains and Montana is wrapping up and farmers now are hoping for warm temperatures.

While moisture conditions across North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana vary, temperatures uniformly have been cooler than normal.

Here's a look at sugar beet crop conditions at area cooperatives as of May 12:

American Crystal Sugar

Unofficial rainfall amounts from thunderstorms early last week were from about an inch in the southern end of the Red River Valley to up to 5 inches in parts of the north, says Jeff Schweitzer, American Crystal Sugar public relations specialist. Some snow even fell on the far northern fringe of the co-op's sugar beet-growing areas.

"The whole growing area received moisture in very different forms," Schweitzer says. In the south, the Moorhead, Minn., factory district received from 1 to 2 inches of rain, which definitely was welcome. It was the first widespread, measurable rain farmers in the district have received this spring.

In early May, farmers in the district had to replant about 7,000 acres of sugar beets after wind blew seeds out of the soil and damaged or destroyed plants.

"The Moorhead district was the driest and we were borderline drought," Schweitzer says. "That's what I would call a multimillion-dollar rain for our company."

Farther north where heavy rains fell, the cooperative still was accessing the crop, Schweitzer says. "We don't have any reports of any crop damage at this point."

Minn-Dak Farmers Co-op

From 1 to 3 inches of rain fell in Minn-Dak co-op growing areas, says Chris DeVries, Minn-Dak communications assistant. The beets are emerging and the moisture is critical for the young plants, he says. Some sugar beets had to be replanted after high winds earlier in the month, but acreage numbers were not available.

Southern Minnesota

No appreciable rain has fallen for several weeks. "We've had hit and miss rains throughout the growing areas," says Kelvin Thompsen, vice president for agriculture at the Southern Minnesota Sugarbeet Co-op in Renville. "There's moisture about 2 or 3 inches down, but the top surface is dry."

Temperatures have been variable this spring, he says.

"We've had a real mix. It's been hot and cool." Crop emergence is about average to slightly ahead of average.

"Generally speaking, the wind has been what we could do without."

But despite the extremely windy conditions this spring, the cooperative has not had to replant many acres of sugar beets, Thompsen says. "We plant a lot of cover crop and have a lot of crop residue."

Sidney Sugars

"Moisture is short - extremely short," says Steve Sing, general manager of the Sidney, Mont.-based subsidiary of American Crystal Sugar Co. About 0.30 of an inch fell May 11.

"We've been so dry that the seeds have been laying in the dirt waiting for water. They've been irrigating for the last three weeks trying to get the crop up."

Enough rain normally falls in the spring so the crops emerge and farmers don't turn on the irrigators until later in the growing season, Sing says. Irrigating early in the season is difficult because there aren't furrows to collect the water.

Farmers planted 41,000 acres of beets for the cooperative this year, about the same as last year, Sing says. A few acres had to be replanted because of windy conditions, he says.

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