Warm weather pushed back sugar beet harvest; growers ‘playing poker with mother nature’ – INFORUM

FARGO It's a warm calm before the storm of trucks, defoliators, carts and harvesters.

"Definitely not unprecedented that it's unseasonably warm, but you know, we're not too far back right now yet, but we're keeping our fingers crossed," said Harrison Weber, executive director of the Red River Valley Subargbeet Grower's Association.

While sugar beet harvest is usually in full swing , these fields sit empty.

The Red River Valley Sugarbeet Grower's Association said Sunday, Oct. 10, is when growers for American Crystal Sugar Company will start their engines.

Growers are looking for the beet's root temperate to be 55 degrees or less. Right now, temps are closer to 65 degrees.

"That's just too hot to store in the pile throughout the winter," Weber said. "(If) they would, the beets would actually spoil and it'd be it'd be not a good situation."

But having warm temperatures isn't necessarily a negative to growers.

"It's a double-edged sword, because we can actually put on more sugar with these nice, warm, sunny days that we're getting," Weber said. "So, we'd like to see that sugar percentage rise, and hopefully put on a little bit more tonnage as well. So, we're just playing poker with mother nature."

Farmers do need to get the crop out before the ground freezes. So, starting Sunday, thousands more trucks will be on the road.

"(We) gotta be looking out for each other, the public, as well as our truck drivers," Weber said. "We need everybody going home safe. (We) need everybody looking (two) to three times at every intersection, slowing down, given room, and we'll get through this together."

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Warm weather pushed back sugar beet harvest; growers 'playing poker with mother nature' - INFORUM