An early-season freeze last week had minimal effects on crops across the Wyo-Braska as producers gear up for harvest beginning soon.
Jerry Darnell, vice president of agriculture for the Western Sugar Cooperative in Scottsbluff, Neb., said temperatures in the upper 20s to low 30s weren’t enough to cause sugarbeet producers any real concern.
“It didn’t get cold enough to affect the beets,” Darnell said. “The beets are still in good shape.” Freezing temperatures can lead to a host of problems in sugarbeets, including stopping the root putting on sugar. If the roots – where the sugar is stored – freeze, there can also be issues with spoilage when they’re piled up at the processing plants.
For now, though, none of those problems is of any concern to Darnell and his crews.
“We’re still on track; everything is going as planned,” he said. “Right now, things are good.”
The latest tests done Saturday showed average sugar content of 16.1% with tons-per-acre yields ranging in the upper 20s to low 30s, Darnell said.
As of Tuesday, about 10 percent of the 2020 beet crop was out of the ground under early-harvest conditions.
Things are going well in other parts of the 111,000-acre Western Sugar Coop growing region in Colorado, Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming. Plants in Lovell and Billings, Mont., are reporting sugar content in the same range – around the 16 percent mark – on similar yields.
“Compared to last year – so far, Mother Nature has blessed us with a really good crop,” Darnell said. “We’ve had lots of growing degree days, the heat units – as long as they get water to them the crop has performed.”