There's some good articles about the harvest this year, explaining how it works with American Crystal Sugar, the farmers and the beets. One is http://www.startribune.com/sugar-beet-harvest-is-the-worst-in-decades-in-parts-of-minnesota-north-dakota/564924132/ . It states that "American Crystal Sugar Co. farmers in the region lost more than a third of their harvest. Growers told the Grand Forks Herald that they must pay American Crystal $343 for every unharvested acre. The money will help the cooperative cover the operating costs of its processing plants.
At this time of year, harvested sugar beets are generally stored in piles on the ground next to sugar factories because, thanks to their high water content, the bulk of the pile stays frozen even when temperatures briefly warm up.
But when they’re still in the ground, getting frozen and then thawing again renders a sugar beet almost worthless. “That freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw damages the tissue,” Metzger said. “We can’t store something like that.”
Those beets “juice out” when they’re piled up so they can’t sit long enough to be processed."
Another good article is https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/columns/cash-market-moves/article/2019/11/18/2019-beet-harvest-frozen-sugarbeets-2 .
It just shows that Mother Nature is in charge of so much of life, from any planting/harvest to fires, earthquakes, storms, glacier melting, etc. We do only what we can.
I combined all the harvest pictures, but had to separate by dates because some of the same numbers were used over. You can view them here.
I combined all the harvest pictures, but had to separate by dates because some of the same numbers were used over. You can view them here.
