The seeds can come bare, coated or pelleted. They are brightly dyed with red and blue in different colors denoting size and brand identifications. Some pellets are made with lyme and fungicides to give them a better start.

"You have so many sizes," says Hans Hohle, a longtime beet equipment developer. "These sizes are hard to singulate and plant. Uniformity in size is necessary for selection and placement. That is the big challenge to the manufacturers of planters."

Hohle, of Lake Park, Minn., thinks he has the answer for the problem: the MagicSem vacuum metering unit. It's manufactured by MaterMacc of Italy. Hohle showed it recently at the International Sugarbeet Institute trade show in Fargo, N.D.

Until now, if beet growers wanted to change seed size, they'd have to stop and change the round "plates" on their planting units. Round "plates" on planters are provided with a circle of holes, sized just smaller than the seed. The seeds are picked up with a vacuum and are released to the planting tubes when the vacuum is cut off.

A typical 24-row planter has 24 plates to change. Plate cost is an issue, but the bigger issue is that farmers sometimes can't find the exact plate size or the correct seed size to fit his plate.

Hohle sells the conversion unit that is suitable to replace conventional metering units on planters made by such companies as John Deere, White or Case, Hohle says.

"I found this thing in the vegetable industry and saw its application in the beet industry," says Hohle. "They have a good reputation in Europe and are now starting to penetrate the U.S. market."

MaterMacc makes its holes large enough to handle even the largest beet seeds. Positioned behind the generous holes is a circular steel "blade" that crosses the vacuum holes, allowing the air to flow. Some of the bare beet seeds have "wing tips," which can lodge in the hole of a normal seed plate, Hohle says.

"This planter does not allow them to poke through," he says. "The seed sits on the surface of the plate and has the air flowing around it."

The machine was patented internationally about seven years ago. It has been in the United States for two years -- primarily in the vegetable market on the East and West coasts.

"The vegetable industry has a multitude of seed sizes in very small plots -- one or two acres -- not the thousands of acres we have in beets," Hohle says. "These people have to change plates a lot as they go from pumpkins, to melons to whatever. One seed plate for a multitude of crop seed sizes is a great advantage."

MaterMacc conversion kits aren't cheap -- $750 per planting "unit," Hohle says. A farmer outfitting a 24-row planter would lay out $18,000.

Supplies are limited for 2001, but sufficient amounts will be made available in 2002, Hohle says.

For a new conventional planter, Hohle says, farmers might pay about $3,000 per row for a seeding unit, including the hopper, seeder unit and metering system. "Our unit, being $750, is only a conversion unit," Hohle says. "This way, he can upgrade an old planter, with only the $750 investment."

"Most farmers with larger acreage will stick with a standard vacuum planter for the crops that are not spacing-sensitive," Hohle says, referring to things like corn and soybeans. "However, smaller farmers -- including smaller sugar beet farmers -- may be better off with this unit, to plant a variety of crops."

Seed spacing is more important for beets than for any other crops, Hohle says. Beets planted too thickly must be thinned. Most beet growers today are striving to plant seed to the final desired stand. If beets grow too thickly, root sizes vary more. That causes problems in defoliating, harvesting, storage and processing.

"The more uniform the size, the better all of these functions are," Hohle says. "It's not like corn, where smaller-than- average ear goes into a combine with lesser consequences."

Hohle has been on the region's sugar beet industry scene for 35 years. A native of Germany, he came to North America in the 1960s with a plant science degree. "There were six kids on our 15-acre farm," Hohle says. "There was no room to feed six, I tell you that."

In 1970, he was one of three original personnel to start Betaseed in Moorhead, where he became research station manager. In 1976, Hohle went to Alloway Manufacturing Co. as a product manager. He helped develop beet defoliation and cultivation equipment. For a time he moved to California, where he helped adapt Alloway's machines to furrow-irrigated crops, such as cotton, tomato and others.

In 1989, he was back in Fargo, working for Parma Co., of Parma, Idaho, selling beet defoliation and harvest equipment throughout the Midwest. In 1990, he worked for Art's Way of Armstrong, Iowa, developing beet tillage and harvesting equipment.

In 1994, Hohle was one of three founding partners in Beetec L.L.C. The company developed the first folding beet defoliator and a beet harvester. In 1996, Beetec was sold to Woods-Alloway and Hohle returned to the company as a product manager until the end of 2000. Recently, Hohle became a MaterMacc distributor for all U.S. beet growing areas. He is starting a new company to develop innovations for sugar beets.

Hohle says major full-line farm equipment manufacturers pay little attention to the beet industry. Financial returns for beet growers have not been high enough to spur much new product development.

"These innovative products will have to be developed outside the manufacturing arena," Hohle says. "I'm trying to bring these new products to the market without being a manufacturer."