| FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- Red River Valley sugar beet growers have
begun their full-scale harvest with a few false starts.
American Crystal Sugar growers took to their fields Saturday, but the
temperatures were too warm to store the beets. They can deteriorate
quickly if harvested and stored at temperatures above 50 degrees.
Rain kept farmers out of their fields Sunday.
Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative planned to start its full-scale harvest
Tuesday, said Tom Knudsen, the co-op' s vice president of agriculture.
Shareholders in both sugar-processing cooperatives have completed a
pre-pile harvest of early maturing beets.
Growers for Moorhead, Minn.-based American Crystal harvested about 56,
000 acres of beets in that early harvest, and Minn-Dak members harvested
about 10, 000 acres -- 12 percent of both co-ops' total acreage.
Farmers hauled the early maturing beets to processing plants. During
the full-scale harvest, the beets are trucked both to regional piling
stations and the plants.
American Crystal' s 3, 000 growers planted about 500, 000 acres of
beets this year. About 34, 000 acres were eliminated under a federal
program that will pay growers to destroy part of this year' s crop.
Floodwaters and disease eliminated another 20, 000 acres.
American Crystal growers will harvest an estimated average crop of 21
tons of sugar beets per acre, said Jeff Schweitzer, a co-op spokesman. The
company' s five plants will process about 9.3 million tons of beets.
Growers at the Wahpeton-based Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative planted 106,
000 acres of beets this spring. The federal program eliminated about 8,
000 acres while floodwaters and disease claimed another 2, 000 acres,
Knudsen said.
He estimated Minn-Dak growers will harvest a crop yielding about 20
tons per acre. |