BOISE, Idaho—Amalgamated Sugar officials expect an outstanding sugarbeet crop that should nearly rival last year’s record yields, but with a higher average sugar content.
The company intends to start early harvest on Sept. 9, a week ahead of schedule, in Magic Valley and Eastern Idaho, with factory operations commencing two days later, and on Sept. 30 in Treasure Valley, with factory operations starting Oct. 2.
Amalgamated President Vic Jaro said the early harvest is planned because processing of last season’s crop dragged into April, causing sugar content and beet quality to deteriorate and elevating processing costs. This season, he hopes an earlier start to harvest will enable the company to finish processing the crop in March.
John Schorr, the company’s corporate director of agriculture, said cool weather throughout much of Amalgamated’s territory this August may slow bulking but should stimulate sugar development.
“I think (yield) will be close to last year, which was a record. I don’t think it will surpass it, but it will be close,” Schorr said.
Last season, despite widespread replants in Magic Valley and east due to frost, the company was pleasantly surprised by a record average yield of 36.3 tons per acre. However, sugar content averaged 15.87 percent, which Jaro said was the lowest level in more than two decades. Jaro expects this year’s sugar content will be at least equal to the five-year average of 17 percent, and ideal conditions could drive it higher. Amalgamated intends to conduct its first testing of the season for sugar levels soon.
The company’s crop size, at 178,000 acres, is down 4,000 acres from last season, mostly in Western Idaho around Owyhee Reservoir, where growers faced irrigation shortages and planted more water-efficient crops.
American Falls, Idaho, grower Alex Tiede said his beets established a healthy stand this spring.
“Most of the beet crop seems like you make it early, and we had a nice spring that cooperated with us and not a lot of frost and replants,” Tiede said.
Tiede said his farm, like many others in his area, switched to a Midwestern beet variety that tends to yield a bit lower but is known for producing high sugar levels. He said the company pays an incentive for high-sugar beets, which yield more finished sugar with less processing.
Given the extremely wet August weather in Southern Idaho, Tiede said some growers in his area have been spraying beets for mold recently.
On the whole, Jaro said fields appear clean, and depressed sugar prices have begun to rise a bit since the industry sought to address the alleged dumping of Mexican sugar on the U.S. market.
In futures trading, the October 2014 price for a pound of sugar on ICE Futures U.S. rose from 15.4 cents to 15.65 cents and was trading at 17.6 cents per pound for March 2015 Tuesday morning after Reuters published news of the U.S. government’s preliminary decision to impose subsidies on Mexican sugar.
Source: www.capitalpress.com