Sidney Sugars Incorporated held its annual Top Ten Grower award luncheon on Wednesday, Jan. 18 to honor those growers who brought in an outstanding crop. Russ Fullmer, Sidney Sugars agriculture manager, congratulated the top ten growers and pointed out that they, along with the rest of the Valley, faced a lot of challenges this year.
“Last year, we came off a bad winter to start the growing season,” Fullmer noted at the luncheon. “We had a huge amount of snow, then spring came and it rained and rained, so growers struggled to get out and plant their crop.”
Some growers managed to get started by the end of April, but many acres remained unplanted until late May. Then the warmer air finally melted the remainder of the snow, bringing with it massive flooding. “It kept raining and still the snow hadn’t melted,” Fullmer commented. “Then it began melting, and everyone with low fields got hit. Growers lost about 1000 acres throughout the Valley to flooding.”
After months of endless moisture, the rains stopped abruptly. Sunshine returned to the Valley, a fact that enabled many fields to begin growing good strong beets. “The spigots got turned off, and away we went,” Fullmer commented. “Growers had a lot of weed control to contend with because of all the moisture, but the Roundup Ready beets came up, we had good stands, and beets grew very well.”
Growers in all of the area enjoyed great growth with the exception of Savage. Savage growers experienced the wrath of four hailstorms in four weeks, one of which demolished crops in several fields and left other fields stunted and badly damaged. “There was a real whiz-bang storm in Savage,” Fullmer said. “Nothing was left and a few fields were totally stripped. Growers in the area had an average loss of 7-8 tons per acre in some fields.”
Harvest time finally arrived, bringing unseasonably warm temperatures that put a temporary halt to the harvest process. However, with the return of cooler weather, harvest proceeded quite smoothly. “We started harvest at Sugar Valley in Fairview and at the factory yard on schedule, but it got hot so we delayed harvest for a week,” Fullmer said. “Once we got going again, though, everything went well. Growers brought in clean beets and overall harvest continued without interruptions.”
Growers averaged 25.2 tons per acre, with an average sugar content of 17.5%.
The open winter has aided storage and the factory has seen minimal pile losses. At press time, only Sugar Valley and the factory yard had beets left for processing. The factory should finish the slice by the end of the month.
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