You’ve been hearing us talk a lot about corn and soybean harvest this fall, but let’s not forget about Michigan’s sugar beets.
“Sugar beet harvest is going along great,” says Carl Bednarski, a sugar beet producer from Tuscola County. He’s also the recently retired president of Michigan Farm Bureau after having served in that role for ten years.
He tells Michigan Ag Today that he’s about 30 percent finished with his sugar beet harvest.
“This week we started, what we call ‘full campaign’, which is a permanent piling of sugar beets,” according Bednarski. “Harvest has been going on for probably a month-and-a-half at least. Because of the warm temperatures, we can’t have a lot of beets sitting on the ground for a long time. So, it’s been on a lottery system that we have working them, but then on Monday though, it opened up and everyone can deliver now. It’s cool enough to store and everyone is going.”
How are yields looking so far?
“I think the August temperatures took the top end off of the yield, but we still have some very good yields out there,” he says. “As far as sugar contents, which matter just as much as yield, they are trending much better than in the past, so this year’s crop looks very promising and we’re look forward to harvesting the rest of what we have.”
He adds that there has been more pressure from Leafspot impacting sugar beets this year.
“We spray to protect that crop, in fact, we spray multiple times every week to 10 days during the summertime. With the dry weather, there was some more pressure and producers needed to step up that spray program and stay with it longer, and still, there were some outbreaks where it was just hard to get under control.
“Leafspot did affect the quality of the crop, but the cooler weather really slows that disease pressure down, and so the beets are recovering from that,” he adds. “There will be a yield drag, and maybe a little bit on sugar content, but they’re still going to have a crop out there and it’s not a disaster.”
CLICK BELOW to hear Michigan Ag Today’s full conversation with Carl Bednarski, as he also talks about corn and soybean yields around Tuscola County.
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