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Growers in the Grand and Uncompahgre valleys are hoping sugar beets
will bring some sweet profits back to Western Slope farms.
Sugar beets, which haven't been grown on the Western Slope in a
quarter-century, are being tested for a comeback.
Green shoots of sugar beets are poking up on 8 acres of test
fields on three farms near Grand Junction, Delta and Montrose, where
hot days and cool nights are conducive to beet growing.
This is the second year of test plantings aimed at finding the
hardiest and highest-yielding sugar beets for the Western Slope
before commercial plantings begin.
Hopes for the future of a crop that was a moneymaker in the past
are growing as fast as the beets.
"I could afford to buy new tractors when I grew sugar beets.
I had two to three payments coming in each year. I had my land and
my equipment paid for. There is nothing that pays like sugar
beets," said farmer Bob Gobbo, who grew beets until 1973 and
now has a test plot northwest of Grand Junction.
Sugar beets paid until the mid-1970s, when Holly Sugar closed its
sugar-beet processing plant in Delta after sugar prices took a dive.
Growers replaced their beet crops with sweet corn and field corn,
beans, alfalfa and onions, but nothing could equal the bottom line
of beets.
"Nothing has even come close to sugar beets," said
Wayne Cooley, an agriculture agent with the Colorado State
University Cooperative Extension.
Cooley, along with Ray Rubalcaba of the Delta Potato Growers
Association, has been working to return sugar beets to the valleys..
Rubalcaba got the beet rolling last year when he contacted
Western Sugar Co. about the possibility of supplying Western Slope
sugar beets to the company's Greeley processing plant. Western Sugar
also has plants in Fort Morgan and Scottsbluff, Neb.
Western Sugar expressed interest and provided the seed for the
Western Slope test plots.
That seed has been vastly improved since beets were last grown on
the Western Slope, Cooley said. The seed is more resistant to weeds
and disease, is coated so it can be planted by machine without
requiring hand thinning, and produces beets with a higher sugar
content.
Cooley said the high yield and the high sugar content on the test
crops show that growers could gross nearly $1,000 an acre.
Growing sugar beets again commercially won't happen in the
valleys for at least two more years and will require some
investments. Growers will need special tractor plates designed to
plant beet seed, a beet harvester and perhaps more trucks to haul
beets.
Cooley said Western Sugar and the growers are also studying the
possibility of a $10 million partial-processing plant in Delta. A
new processing method would turn the beets into a liquid at that
plant and the liquid would be shipped to Western Sugar's other
plants. |