Sugar beet planting progress was early May across the board – Agweek

While farmers in most states were finishing planting in 2023 in early May, farmers in North Dakota and Minnesota were ramping up their efforts.

A May 8 Crop Progress Report from the USDA pegged sugar beet planting in the top four producing states — Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho and Michigan — at 41% complete, compared to 56% on the five-year average. But much of that progress has been made in the last two states as the former two continued their natural slowdowns.

Farmers growing sugar beets for Amalgamated Sugar, based in Boise, had 90% of their crop in the ground as of May 3, 2023, said Brody Griffin, vice president of agriculture for Amalgamated Sugar.

More than 700 farmers grow sugar beets for the cooperative on an area of ​​180,000 feddans, producing 7 million annually.

“The recent warm weather has allowed good emergence in the Western Growing Area, and most farmers in Magic Valley are irrigating to ensure stand development,” Griffin said on May 3.

About 90% of the 74,000 acres of Western Sugar Co-op in the Southern Region were planted as of May 3, said Jerry Darnell, vice president of agriculture for the Southern Region. The farmers who grow sugar beets for the co-op, based in Denver, will plant a total of 112,000 acres.

Darnell said soil conditions in the southern region of the Western Sugar Association needed rain in early May. The Southern region consists of Colorado and Nebraska.

“What we need is a good rainstorm. That would put us in good shape,” he said. Precipitation was forecast for May 4 and May 5.

The lockers were scheduled to open the week of May 8th.

Mark Bjornstad, senior agronomist, said farmers in the northern region of the Western Sugar Cooperative had almost completed planting as of May 8. He said the acreage of Montana was 100% farmed and Wyoming 90%. Forty percent of Montana’s acres are visible as of May 8 and 15% of Wyoming’s acres are visible as of that date.

The forecast for the week includes showers, which would be welcome to improve the moisture content.

“It’s dry. Any chance of a lot of rain would be beneficial,” Bjornstad said.

Planting was nearly complete by May 8 at Wyoming Sugar, based in Worland. The farmers will grow a total of about 11,000 acres of sugar beets for the company.

“Our plant area is probably 99% planted, and our outdoor areas started over the weekend, so I imagine we will be 100% planted by the middle of the week through the weekend,” said Cadan Hooper, an agricultural expert with Wyoming Sugar.

He said several days of rain resulted in good moisture conditions.

To the north and east, the farmers who grow sugar beets for the Michigan Sugar Co. have made rapid progress in growing their crop.

Farmers have planted about 100,000, or 70 percent of the cooperative’s 142,000 acres, as of May 3, said Elizabeth Taylor, Michigan’s director of agricultural relations and communications. The farmers hoped to get the remaining sugar beets in the ground shortly after mid-May.

She said the beets that appeared were in good shape and the moisture was sufficient.

Farmers in Minnesota and North Dakota began planting sugar beets in late April, and hoped they would be fully operational in the second week of May. The May 8 Crop Progress Report put Minnesota farmers down 23%, compared to 45% on the five-year average, and North Dakota farmers down 1%, compared to 44% on the five-year average.

Farmers getting into the field earlier was delayed by heavy snow in April and cold temperatures.

The first planters were from American Crystal Sugar Co. They planted in the factory area in Morehead, Minnesota on May 1, and some were planted the next day in the Crookston, Minnesota area two days later. American Crystal Sugar also has plant areas in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, Hillsboro, North Dakota, and Drayton, North Dakota.

Joe Hastings, general agronomist for Crystal Sugar, predicted that the farmers of the co-op’s ups and downs of the Red River Valley would begin farming in earnest by the week of May 8 if the rain that was forecast over the previous weekend did not halt their progress.

“The fields are going around very quickly,” Hastings said on May 3.

Although farmers growing sugar beets for American Crystal Sugar started the planting season later than the long-term average date of May 5, it was more than two weeks earlier than the company’s last date of May 24, 2022, he noted.

American Crystal Sugar estimates that the 2023 acreage of sugar beets will be 418,000. Hastings said the company will monitor the progress of cultivation to determine whether it needs to implement the Target Acreage Program, or TAP. Last year, American Crystal Sugar released an additional 52,000 acres through the program. Farmers who register with TAP plant additional acres if the company decides it needs to increase it due to concerns that production could be cut.

Farmers growing sugar beets for the Maine Duck Farmers Cooperative in Wahhabiton, North Dakota, had about 12,000 acres planted as of May 3, said Mike Metzger, vice president of Agriculture and Research for Maine Duck.

The cooperative’s farmers will plant a total of 103,000 acres in 2023. He said the farmers hope to have a third of that land by the end of the week of May 5th.

“We’re sitting in pretty good shape,” said Metzger.

Field conditions were good.

“It works well. Everything turns wet,” Metzger said.

Farther south, southern Minnesota cooperative farmers started sugar beets in early May after being delayed by blizzards and rains in April.

“Right now things are really unraveling, and we’re really taking off now,” Todd Gezelius, Vice President of Agriculture, Southern Minnesota Sugar House Cooperative, said May 3, 2023. .

“In a normal year, we’d start around mid-April and finish now, first week in May,” he said. “It’s still better than last year. We didn’t start until the middle of May, and it was the first week of June before we finished.”

Farmers will plant a total of 117,000 acres for SMBS in 2023.