About a third of Frankenmuth, Mich., farmer Dean Haubenstricter’s sugarbeets are in the ground.
“Conditions were beautiful a few weeks ago for planting, and that’s why we got started,” he says. “The conditions were so nice we thought we had to do something.”
Haubenstricter tells Brownfield he’s taking his time planting this year after one of his worst planting seasons ever in 2020 when Michigan sugarbeet growers replanted 30,000 acres following a cold, wet spring. This year it’s dry.
“If it didn’t rain, we were going to plant some more this morning,” he says. “But it will be probably tomorrow now, the ground is not very wet at all.”
Haubenstricter, who also serves as the treasurer of the Michigan Sugar Company, expects to wrap up planting beets in the next seven to 10 days.