"We have a very nice crop underway and had our earliest start for an early harvest since the start of the cooperative," Wickstrom says. "That's all in preparation for a big crop, and starting the campaign early so we can give our growers an opportunity to harvest the whole crop."
Minn-Dak's yield as of Sept. 1 was 26.3 tons per acre, which would provide just over 3 million tons of beets delivered to the receiving stations. "Once we get north of 3 million tons, that's a big crop for our facility to process in a year," Wickstrom says. The yield had increased from about 25.3 tons per acre in a projection made in mid-July, so the figure can change.
Co-op agronomists sampled about 360 fields from mid-July to early August. Yields could rise somewhat with wetter weather.
"The nice thing about a longer early-harvest campaign is that it will give us an early indication about what the final harvest will be," Wickstrom says. "The growers will not only harvest headlands, but will make some strike-outs into the middle of the fields."
Minn-Dak has implemented a "corral" system in which shareholders identify 10 percent of their acres that would not be harvested if harvesting everything would risk storage and spoilage problems at the end of the processing season.
Wary of rains
Meanwhile, Brian Ingulsrud, vice president of agriculture for American Crystal Sugar Co., says the pre-pile campaign that started Aug. 17 has been going well. The company doesn't target a specific percentage of acres for harvesting, but the start date is calibrated to the final processing date, and that figure ranges somewhere around 10 percent of the ultimate crop.
Year-to-year, American Crystal members take turns starting harvest early on a rotation basis. The co-op pays premiums for beets that come in earlier during the pre-pile to offset the loss in potential tonnage and sugar content from harvesting early in the season.
The yield expectation stood at about 26.8 tons per acre on Sept. 2.
"We're going to be out pulling samples again next week," Ingulsrud says.
Preliminary indications are that the crop will outperform last year's 17.3 percent sugar content. The company shoots for 17.5 to 18 percent sugar. Weather in late August and September has a big effect on sugar content.
"If we do get rain over the weekend, which we're projected to get, there's a good chance the yield will grow because we've had nice, warm weather that helps beets grow," Ingulsrud says.
Crystal strives to have its factories finish processing, or beet slice, by mid- to late-May, depending on location. The company this year implemented a Targeted Acre Program to allow co-op members to bid for extra compensation if they keep beets in the field for potential, intentional destruction, if the crop is expected to be too big.
Five-day stockpile
"There's a little concern this year, having (harvested) beets on the ground, when it gets to be 90-plus degrees, and we sometimes see some degradation," Ingulsrud says.
But the company also needs to keep enough beets in place near the factories, which run continuously to avoid expensive shut-down costs, in the event beet supplies run out. That is about five days' supply for the factory, but varies with weather expectations.
It's too soon to accurately predict the economic impact of the 2015 crop.
The co-op increased the forecast gross payment for its 2014 crop beets from the $37 per ton projection in March to $40 per ton in late May. The company says the increase was because of favorable sugar pricing since earlier projections. The overall price is still less than previous years, in part because of earlier effects of Mexican imports, but also because the 2014 beet crop was a relatively small 23.1 tons per acre and relatively low 17.3 percent sugar content. The average payment for the 2013 crop was $45.23 per ton.
Source: www.grandforksherald.com