More Than Half of Michigan’s Sugarbeets in the Ground, Decent Emergence

The Michigan Ag Today Sugarbeet Planting Report is made possible by Betaseed: where research breeds confidence.

USDA’s Crop Progress Report on Monday shows that 46 percent of Michigan’s sugarbeets are planted. Rob Gerstenberger, sales manger for Betaseed in Michigan, says that in the last few days, 60 percent of the crop could be planted.

“We’ve made really good progress—the warm weather we’ve had the last couple weeks has been excellent for the beets that have been planted,” he says.

The rain from the weekend did bring planting to a stop, bringing adequate rainfall to get the beets to grow.

“Over the weekend, we had six to eight tenths of moisture that did slow down planting,” says Gerstenberger. “We have moisture for emergence, and at this point, I don’t really think we are in a big need of moisture to get this crop up and going. That’s our big concern—getting emergence. If we would just get some little showers along the way, we would be set up for another nice crop.”

Gerstenberger says after scouting Wednesday, he estimates that roughly 50,000 acres of beets have poked above the surface.

“I was actually looking at some beets [Wednesday] morning that were planted the end of March and right after Easter, and we have some nice stands coming,” he says.

Gerstenberger adds that Betaseed still has good inventories of Michigan varieties if they need additional seeds for additional acres.

“We’re sitting with a good inventory of some really good, key hybrids.”