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A week after breaking the production record, work at Holly Sugar hasn't slowed down much.

Lynn Powers, production manager at Holly, said production on Tuesday was close to a daily record.

"It's still running very well," Powers said.

Holly Sugar broke the weekly production record during the week of Nov. 19 with 18,121 hundredweights (cwt.) of sugar per day for a week. The old record was 17,646 established in 1992.

Both Powers and MonDak Beet Growers Association President Don Steinbeisser agree that there are three reasons for the excellent production: Holly's employees, area growers and Mother Nature.

"The credit has to go to everybody around - employees, growers and the weather," Powers said.

"Holly Sugar employees are doing the best that they possibly can," Steinbeisser said. "The weather really cooperated with us. The cool weather in November pretty much saved the beets for us."

Holly Sugar officials commend growers for bringing in extremely clean beets.

Steinbeisser said "years of experience" led growers to top off more of the beet than normal in order to take the frozen tissue off.

"The beets are processing a lot better than we ever anticipated," Steinbeisser said.

Powers said perfect weather would be a high of about 30 in the day and a low of 10 or above at night. "What we really don't want to happen is have the edges freeze and then thaw," he said.

Steinbeisser said things look positive now, but "we aren't going to know until all the beets are processed." The growers' beets are expected to be processed by the end of December.