| The 2001 sugar beet harvest swung into full swing at midnight Monday
morning.
According to Blane Doty, the harvest maintenance supervisor with
American Crystal Sugar in Crookston, farmers got off to a good start.
"We had a good night," Doty said. "The temperature was
great, the beets clean, and enough people."
Doty said, by looking at the fields, he'd guess farmers in the
Crookston area would harvest a good, average crop this year. Valley-wide,
he expected the harvest to approach 18 to 18 and a half tons of beets per
acre. In the Crookston area he expected the numbers to be slightly higher,
at 19 to 20 tons per acre. He said it was too early to predict sugar
content yet, since only pre-pile sugars have been analyzed.
The pre-pile harvest was carried out through most of September to give
sugar plants the opportunity to get operations up and running smoothly
before the full harvest begins.
Approximately 491,000 acres of sugar beets are growing throughout the
Red River Valley as the harvest got underway. Doty said the number of
acres actually harvested will depend on the weather and how many acres
will eventually be included in the federal government payment-in-kind
program. Doty suspected that about 20,000 acres will be destroyed under
the PIK program in an attempt to reduce sugar inventories.
Doty said weather could be a problem if temperatures drop too low later
this week when some weather forecasts call for temperatures in the 20s, or
even low teens.
"We don't want the beets to freeze," Doty said. "Then we
have to give them time to heal."
Doty said that, now that the harvest is underway, people in the area
should drive cautiously because of the increased amount of farm equipment
and truck traffic on the highways.
"There'll be a lot of extra traffic on the road," he said,
"and everyone should use extra caution." |